


Team RWBYE - The True Story

by SimplySebi



Category: RWBY
Genre: Multi, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-17 14:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15463839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplySebi/pseuds/SimplySebi
Summary: Everyone has heard of team RWBY, the four huntresses who saved the world from Salem. But your history books don't tell the whole story, the true story. Some bits have been left out, or you could better say, one person. I am Elisabeth, and I am the person erased from history, and this is the true story of team RWBYE.





	1. Chapter 1

In war, many things, and even people, are lost. In war, it is not about who is right, but it is about who is left. War is a horrible thing invented by humans. But the most terrible thing about war, is that it takes away a piece of yourself that you are never getting back. A piece of you is left behind on that last battlefield and you walk away from it without even looking back. Believe me, I know how it feels. I experienced it first-hand. I fought in the Second Great War. You probably heard about it, as it was, well as the name says, a pretty big war. 

I fought alongside amazing people, the greatest heroes of their time, and maybe even of all time. You probably heard of them too, as their names are engraved in every history book made since the Second Great War. To name some of them: Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren, Sun Wukong, Neptune Vasilias, Ilia Amitola, and many more. They were, like I already said, amazing people, and amazing friends. 

I myself was, am, part of the most famous huntresses team of all time. Our team led the troops in the Second Great War, and ultimately, it was our team who took down Salem and all her second in commands.  
I can say for sure you have heard of my teammates. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. It is pretty hard to not know them, as in every town you see their names set in monuments, or even statues of themselves. We were known as team RWBYE at that time (pronounced as Ruby, which caused a lot of confusion sometimes).

I can also say for sure you have never heard of team RWBYE, or of me. In the history books the story is told about team RWBY and their friends, who took down Salem and her empire and saved the world.   
Well, the story is a bit different than that. Cause I exist (a horrible thing, I know). 

We decided about 100 years ago that we wouldn’t tell the whole story. We couldn’t. If we did, panic would spread across the world, and the last thing we wanted was another war. So we erased team RWBYE and replaced it with team RWBY. We erased the person who stood for the letter E, and pretended like she never existed, like she wasn’t there. We intended to never tell the whole story, but I have got a promise to keep. So I will tell you, tell you about team RWBYE. Tell you about me.

I am the person who represents the E in team RWBYE. I fought in the Second Great War alongside my friends and personally took down Salem. I am Elisabeth, and I am the last one left of team RWBYE and our friends. I have been the last one for almost 30 years by now. When the last one of my friends died, I promised I would tell the whole story. I promised I would get myself the recognition I always deserved. I don’t agree with her. I don’t deserve any special treatment. I just did my job. But well, a promise is a promise, and I have never broken any promises in my life and I don’t plan on breaking one now. So, here we go.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time I had contact with someone from Beacon, the place that would become my home so soon, was when I was 15 years old. Well, Beacon never really was my home. I believe home is not a place, it is people. I will explain: when you go back to a place you view as home after the people you love are gone, does the place still feel like home? Surprise, it doesn’t. The only thing you see is what is not there anymore.

I know for sure, since I went back to Beacon, well the ruins of it, after Yang’s death.  
It didn’t feel like home. I didn’t feel the same peace and happiness I would always feel when I was at Beacon. Then it hit me. This place, Beacon, wasn’t my home. The people I met here were my home.

My friends.

My team.

After realising that I sunk to my knees and cried for a bit. Grieving the loss of my home, cursing the heavens for taking away the only people who ever mattered in my life.

I met the headmaster of Beacon at the most non-formal place ever. One of the places you would never expect such a fancy, rich and famous man to be. The slums. Yeah that’s right, the slums. I was homeless for about 10 years and I lived on the streets, hoping each night before I went to sleep, I would still see the sunrise the next day. It was a hard time for me, but I survived I guess. This story is not about me complaining about how bad my life is.

When you live on the streets, you learn quite a few things. The first lesson you learn is to never trust someone. So, logically, the first reaction I had when professor Ozpin approached me, was to either run or to hit him in the face. I chose the latter, as I was already annoyed to the death by other people I had met that day. Instead of hitting soft flesh, my fist hit the empty air and I almost hugged the floor with my face. Ozpin chuckled, standing aside of me.

“I am afraid hitting me won’t work, miss. But don’t be scared, I have not come here to hurt you.”

Recovering myself, I stared at the man in front of me. I didn’t like strangers. Most of them would stay away when I showed them my ‘killer gaze’, but this man didn’t seem to be intimidated in the slightest.

Of course I knew who this man was. The great Ozpin, a prodigy, one of the youngest headmasters ever to be appointed to a school like Beacon. I decided in that moment I didn’t like him.

I always had an aversion for strangers who approached me and thought they could just talk to me like I was one of their friends. And then they would always try to help me. ‘You will be safe with me.’ ‘I will give you some food, a place to stay. Whatever you want.’ Like I was a poor kicked dog who needed a saviour.

But there was something strange about this man. A strange aura, and a strong one it was. I had the feeling that he could take me down with a blink of eyes, even though I knew that couldn’t be true.

“What do you want from me.”

It didn’t sound like a question and it wasn’t meant as one. It was another warning, one that screamed ‘stay away from me‘. Any sane person would have turned around and walked away. Of course he didn’t. He only smiled at me like the poor dog he thought I was, as though I had barked and he thought to himself how cute I was.

“I didn’t come to you without a good reason, miss. I have heard of you and the enormous power you have displayed. Taking over the streets like you did isn’t the work of just a homeless kid. I know that you are capable of so much more, and I am very curious to see what power you exactly possess.”

He paused, his smile still trying to lure me in. To ask the obvious questions.

How do you know of me? What do you know precisely about me? Why do you think I am in the possession of an enormous power? I didn’t replay, just kept staring right at the man.

“Do you want to come to my school, and become a warrior, a huntress. Someone slays monsters and helps people in need?”

I raised one eyebrow. Not really. After 10 years of living on the streets, you learn to accept your fate. You learn to accept that you have no chance at a real future. You will never be a real kid, who goes to school and plans out a career for themselves. So naturally, I never did. I never thought about what I wanted to do in life, not especially because I knew I didn’t have a chance of a good future, but because I simply didn’t want to. The future is something that is in my opinion so far away, and I never was a person, still am not, who thinks things extremely through. I just wait to see if I am able to live another day, and I try to live that day as best as possible. That’s it.

Professor Ozpin sighed, and suddenly I noticed a whole new aura around the man. He was tired, exhausted. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his knees were starting to buckle, screaming for help, for someone who would take over at least a bit of the weight.

“I have seen, no the better word for it is heard, a vision. A team of five huntresses, including you. Salem rising again. You five are destined to save the world from her, but the other four are not strong enough to do it on their own. They need your help, your protection. So please. I get that you don’t like me, and I understand why. But please, become a huntress, not even for my sake of the world’s sake, but for theirs. They did not ask to be such a big part in the fate of the world. They did not ask for it. I am begging you, help them.”

He had a way with words, I had to give that to him. He chose the best words possible to convince me, and I have to admit, it worked. I couldn’t deny his request after hearing of his vision. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I felt in my bones it was my duty to protect this girls from their own fate. So I agreed. I agreed to come to professor Ozpin’s school, to train to become a huntress, but, the most important part, to become the protector of these four girls.

The poor man was so relieved when he heard my agreement. I could see it in de way he stretched his back, as if I really had taken over some of the weight upon his shoulders. He thanked me, and gave me the information I needed right before he turned around and walked away, his cane making a clicking noise with every step he made.

Next week, 11:00 o’clock, Beacon Cliff

* * *

Standing between the trees behind all the first year students, I had the chance to observe each and every one of them. No one knew I was there, except for professor Ozpin and professor Goodwitch of course. I had masked my aura, but I sensed they knew I was there. Well, I only came because they asked me too, so it would have been a bit strange if they hadn’t noticed me. i didn’t know for sure who exactly were the girls I was supposed to protect, but I had an idea. The day Ozpin told me about them, already a week ago, I had felt a very strange feeling. Like suddenly I was surrounded by four different aura’s . The feeling was there for a few seconds, and then it disappeared. But the memory stayed, and the best way to describe the aura’s is by their colour.

Red. White. Black. Yellow. Four girls, each from different paths of life, but united here, not knowing of the future that laid in front of them.

The girl with the hood was Red. She had a very lively aura, one that reminded me of a happy pop song. But there was also a more serious layer of her aura. One that warned me that this girl had seen and gone through a lot already, even as she was my age.

The girl with the Schnee crest on her back was White. Her aura was cold and I sensed a great sadness coming from here. I had no idea what happened to her that made her so sad, but I felt a big urge to help her.

The girl with the ribbon was Black. Darkness spiralled around her, covering her in shadows and making her look like one of them. I felt a big wisdom and experience coming from here, but the pain I felt present within White was also there with her.

The girl with the gauntlets was Yellow. Her aura was similar to that from Red (I suspected they were related, cousins maybe?), with the same happiness and just looking at here made you want to travel the world, do amazing things and live.

Not knowing their names, I decided to call them by their colours right now. Watching as they were launched in the sky, and suppressing a smile when the scrawny boy in armour was sent of flying, I came down to stand side by side with the two professors. They acknowledged my presence with a nod, and then continued to look at their scrolls, following the initiation of their students.

To say I was surprised to hear I didn’t have to take part in the initiation is an understatement. This man I had just met, who said he only had heard from me and my power through rumours, didn’t even want to test me, didn’t even want to see what I really was capable of?

“This initiation is meant to test their strength and to prepare them for the upcoming four years. It is necessary for them to realize the difference between normal combat schools and schools like Beacon. We are here to fight monsters, and we need be ready to fight them at any moment, and grow stronger each day.”

I looked up, catching the eyes of professor Ozpin. He presented me another scroll, on which I could also follow the initiation. I was just in time to catch a glimpse of Red and White becoming partners, just as Black and Yellow. Interesting combinations. Both of their dynamics immediately reminded me of a Ying and Yang balance. Complete opposites, but just enough alike to understand each other and work perfectly together.  
Just as I thought that, White scolded Red for her lack of communication during their fight, and I chuckled almost silently. Okay, maybe not yet, but my intuition told me they would be very good partners.

We stood there, silently watching as initiation rolled by. We watched them find the relics, their fight with the Nevermore and the Deathstalker, and I instantly noticed that the two separate groups fighting the Grimm, would also be made into two teams later that day.

As I predicted, Red and co worked very well together, eliminating the Nevermore fast and smooth. Looking at Red, standing on that high cliff, I was reminded of old fairy tale characters. Red didn’t reminded me of one in specific, but just her seeing her stand there inspired me. The same kind of inspiration I felt whenever I had the chance to infiltrate big crowds and listen to people telling old stories, mostly fairy tales. They gave me a feeling of invincibility, as though I myself was one of the heroes of the book.

Red had that same air hanging around her, that I can only describe with a spark of hope.

“She is special.”

My first words spoken to the professor. They didn’t sound very meaningful, but I knew I wouldn’t have to explain to him.

“She is.”

* * *

 

“From this day forward, you will work together as team RWBY, lead by Ruby Rose.”

Leaning against a pillar, I watched the last part of the initiation. Team RWBY. Soon to be team RWBYE. I was eager to get to know these four girls, but a part of me was also scared. I didn’t know these people, and suddenly I had to share my daily life with them for about four years?  
I was mostly scared of how they would react to the news of a fifth member joining their team. A normal hunter or huntress team would consist of four people. How would they react to a completely unknown person, who wasn’t even there at the initiation, suddenly being part of their team?

I wouldn’t have to wait much longer, as professor Ozpin told me he would introduce me to the four girls after the last bit of the initiation. Well, at least I finally knew their names. That was a start.


	3. Chapter 3

The morning started early for me. I was used to standing up early, in order to escape people going to their work or wherever they went. Like I already said, I really like my peace and quiet, so the liveliness of people walking and talking didn’t sound very attractive to me. Oh yeah, and there was also that thing of being kicked out of some place I used to sleep by stupid people who thought they owned the world.  
  
As silent as possible I stepped out of my bed, trying not to awake the other people sleeping in the room. It was still a bit uncomfortable, living together with four other people, but I had a good and comfortable bed, so I was willing to make concessions. The members of team RWBY all had different reactions to me joining their team.   
  
Red, or Ruby Rose, seemed extremely happy and immediately started asking me all kind of questions.   
  
White, the famous heiress Weiss Schnee, just stared at me, like she was trying to decide whether to accept me or kill me.   
  
Black, Blake Belladonna, nodded at me and returned her attention to the book she was reading before I came in.   
  
Yellow, Yang Xiao Long (one of my teammates was actually named Yang, and I described the dynamics between them as a Ying and Yang balance, what a coincidence), also seemed happy, like Ruby. I soon discovered they were sisters (not full sisters I suspect, as they look totally different), so I was right about them being related too. I love it when I am right.  
  
I felt they were good people, although some of them might not show it just yet (I am not subtly referring to Weiss), and for the first time in a long time, I felt kind of happy. I now had a place I belonged to, and people who could become life long friends. I was determined to make the best of the upcoming four years.  
  
Our room was a bit bigger than the usual dorms, as we were with five instead of four. Five beds stood in a horizontal line next to each other under a large window, and next to both sides of the door stood a desk, accompanied by a chair. Above it were some shelves, meant as a place to keep your books.  On one of the desks I saw a little piece of paper, telling me that we could pick up our school uniforms in the aula. Changing into my regular clothes, just a simple black shirt with a blue jacket, a black pair of pants and some old black sneakers, I went on my way to get the uniforms. Yes, I know almost all of my clothes are black, but for some reason people almost only throw away black clothes, so I can’t help it.  
  
Walking out of the door, and closing it without making a sound, I went to the aula, picked up everyone’s school uniforms and returned to our dorm. I placed the uniforms of my team on the desk and threw away the note. Holding my uniform in front of me I observed it for a few seconds. It was a good uniform, made of good quality material and nice colours. I liked it.   
  
Just as I returned, in uniform and well, with coffee (and one tea for Blake, she seemed more like a tea-person) for everyone , my teammates started waking up. I glanced at the clock. 7:26. It was about time they woke up, we had to be in class at 9 o’clock, and I had gotten the impression some of my new teammates weren’t really fast in the morning.   
  
Ruby sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.   
  
“What is the time?” Her voice was sleepy and even more high pitched than usual.  
  
“Almost 07:30, so it is about time to get up.” I tried to make my voice sound as friendly as possible. I had no idea if it actually sounded like that, I hadn’t really talked to people for a long time.  
  
Ruby yawned and stretched her arms high above her head. “Just give me a few more minutes to really wake up.” I smiled at her plea, and put down the coffee and tea I had been holding on the desk, next to the uniforms.   
  
“I picked up our uniforms and some coffee to wake up. If you want some, it is on the desk.”  
  
Ruby yawned again. “Thanks Elisa.” The words faded away as Ruby laid down again, and it was silent in the room again, although sometimes disturbed by soft snores of Yang.   
  
Elisa. That actually sounded a lot better than my full name. I hated that name, it sounded too formal and didn’t fit me all, so I decided to not tell them my real name. Elisa was much less formal and easier to say or call out during a fight. It was perfect, and I was actually a bit disappointed I didn’t come up with that name until now.   
  
Sitting down on the chair next to the desk, I took out my scroll. It was a fascinating device, and I was amazed by its almost limitless possibilities. My eyes fell on the names on the bottom of the screen. The names of my teammates, plus their pictures and aura levels, were displayed there. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long and me. I was the only one who didn’t have a last name displayed. Speaking of last names, Yang and Ruby didn’t have the same one, so my suspicion of them not being full sisters was probably true too.   
  
*BEEP BEEP BEE-* The awful noise was cut short by Yang, who slapped her hand on the snooze button. I heard everyone waking up now, except for Weiss , who was still sleeping like a fairy tale princess. The second time that day already Ruby asked me what time it was. I checked the clock on my scroll before answering. “07:36, time to really get up.” Yang groaned, but actually stood up and starting getting ready. Ruby and Blake soon followed her example.

“Did you get us our school uniforms and coffee?” I looked up, surprised by the question. Yang’s lilac eyes pierced into mine. She had friendly, but demanding eyes.  
  
“Um yeah, I woke up pretty early, so I thought it would be convenient if I picked up our school uniforms.”   
  
Yang broke into a smile and patted me on the shoulder. I shivered when she touched me, not used to physical contact. Not in a positive way. “Thanks!” She got her own uniform, and threw Ruby and Blake’s towards them. I turned back to my scroll, not wanting it to look like I was intruding their privacy. Then my eye fell on the cups of coffee and tea still standing on the desk. They were probably ice cold by now. The chair made a loud noise as I stood up. I would just get them some new coffee and tea then, although I was not in favour of wasting food or drinks.   
  
“Are you going to get us new ones because they are cold? I can warm them up too you know.”  
  
Yang, already changed into her school uniform, suddenly appeared beside me and placed her hands on mine. I felt a warmth coming from her hands, slowly spreading throughout my whole body and warming up the former cold drinks.    
  
“Your semblance?”   
  
My question wasn’t really a question. I already knew what their semblances were thanks to my observations during the initiation. Yang’s semblance was the ability to take damage, and dish it back twice as hard. Her semblance came with the ability to control fire, but within limits, what explains how she was able to warm up the drinks.  
  
“Yep.” Her eyes had a mischievous look in it, as if she had just shared a big secret with me.  
  
I handed her a cup of coffee, and set the rest of the drinks back on the desk. While Yang and I were busy with the drinks, Blake and Ruby had changed as well and were discussing something in hushed voices.

“Should we wake her?” Ruby’s voice sounded unsure.   
  
“If you want to die, then yes Rubes.” Yang laughed at her own joke and swallowed her whole cup of coffee down in one sip. “Ahh, that will keep me awake during boring lectures.” She winked at me and went off to her bed. “We still have to unpack and decorate, so let’s wake the Ice Queen up.”   
  
Suddenly Ruby had a whistle in her hands, and before any of us could stop her, she blew it, a deafening noise. Weiss was already sitting up straight on her bed, but the noise of the whistle surprised her and she fell on the ground. Ruby jumped off of  Weiss’ bed with a huge smile on her face.   
  
“Goooood morning team RWBYE!”   
  
Weiss was still on the ground with an annoyed look on her face. “What in the world is wrong with you?”  
  
“Now that you are awake we can officially begin our first order of business.” Ruby continued, ignoring Weiss completely. The girl had guts.  
  
“Excuse me?” Weiss finally stood again, but the annoyed look on her face was still there.  
   
“Decorating!” Yang was there too now, holding a bunch of stuff in her arms. I had no idea how she was able to not drop a single thing.  
  
“We still have to unpack.” Blake continued, holding a suitcase in her hand, which chose that that was the perfect moment to open, letting all the stuff inside fall on the floor. “And clean.”  
  
Ruby blew on the whistle again (I had to get rid of that stupid thing soon.).   
  
“Alright! Weiss, Blake, Yang, Elisa and their fearless leader Ruby have begun their first mission! BANZAI!”   
  
“BANZAI!” Ruby, Blake and Yang did some sort of weird pose. I had no idea what was going on, so I decided to just become part of the furniture for a moment.   
  
Then we actually started unpacking and decorating the room, _our_ room. Weiss had also changed into her school uniform, then took out some sort of fancy painting and stared intensely at the wall, apparently trying to decide where to put it. Blake and I looked at each other for a moment and I shrugged my shoulders. Rich people.

I have to say, the room looked absolutely stunning after we were done. There was only one problem.  
  
“This isn’t going to work.”, Weiss started.  
  
“It is a bit cramped.”, Blake continued.  
  
“Maybe we can ditch some of our stuff.”, Yang proposed.  
  
“Or we could ditch the beds, and replace them with bunk beds!”, Ruby countered.   
  
Weiss of course was against the idea, but Yang and Ruby were excited and Blake and I just accepted our fate.   
  
“Objective, complete!”, Ruby called out.   
  
Two of the beds were still standing on the floor, and the other three were either hung up with ropes or standing on top of some of Blake’s books. Ruby’s bed hung above that from Weiss, and if I was Weiss I would be terrified of the bed falling on top of me when I was asleep. Yang’s bed stood on top of some of Blake’s books, and it looked like Blake could sleep in peace without having nightmares about beds falling on top of you and breaking all your bones.  
My bed hung in the middle of the four beds. It was attached to the ceiling and the wall in front of it with ropes, and it looked pretty steady to me.   
  
“Alright, our second order of business is…. classes. Now, we have a few classes together today. At 09:00 we’ve gotta be-“  
  
Ruby was interrupted by Weiss, who gasped in shock. “What? Did you say 9 o’clock?! It’s 08:55, you dunce!” And with that she turned around and sprinted away, leaving the four of us behind.  
  
“Uh, to class!” And with that, Ruby also sprinted away. Blake, Yang and I soon followed.  
  
While running, trying to still be on time for class, I saw professor Ozpin and professor Goodwitch standing at a few meters away from us. Professor Ozpin smiled and then took a sip of whatever was in his mug, and professor Goodwitch looked at her watch.   
  
I smiled too. I had the feeling our mornings were always going to be like this, and I didn’t have a problem with that.   


* * *

“One Strawberry Sunrise please, with one of those little umbrellas.”  
  
The bartender nodded and started preparing my drink. I was in a small bar in an almost even smaller town. The mission took me longer than predicted, but I didn’t really care. It was not like someone was waiting for me to return, so I could stay away as long as I wanted.   
  
I took out one of the photo’s I saved in the inside pocket of my long brown jacket. It was a very old photo, taken shortly after one of the battles of the Second Great War by one of the journalists who hung around, trying to get some exciting news out of us.   
  
I used to hate photo’s. The only photo’s people ever took of me were either to score themselves a headline, or to show how bad life on the streets was. That changed when I became part of team RWBYE. Photo’s no longer were a nuisance, they became a sort of sacred place in which I could relive old memories.   
  
When the first one of my friends died, I started looking at my pictures together with my friends even more. Slowly each and every one of my friends and teammates died, and I was left alone, with only pictures left to prove they were really there, that they were really my friends and we had really lived such a big part of our lives together. How does the saying go again? You don’t know the importance of photo’s until they are all you have left.   
  
This picture was one of my absolute favourites, and I took it with me with every step I took. It wasn’t healthy, but it was all I had left, and it kept me from going insane. You also only fully realise the importance of some people in your life, how much you love them and need them, after they are gone. My friends, and especially my teammates, were the ones who made my life worth living, and without them, I felt numb. Like I didn’t even really live, but was just _there._  
  
I always felt like my only purpose in life was to protect my friends, to keep them safe and make sure they were happy, and when my job was done I felt lost. I lost my way and I was lost for a long time, doing quite a few things I still regret.  
Then one day, I took a deep breath, sat down and thought. I thought about what I was doing with my life. I thought about what my best friends would have said to me if they had seen me behaving like this.   
  
Ruby would have sat down next to me, hugging me and telling me it will be all right. That I am strong enough to take the next step.  
  
Weiss would have scolded me, telling me to not be such a dunce and just move on.  
  
Blake would have looked at me with her golden eyes, silently telling me not to give up, that she believed in me. That she believed I could make it.  
  
Yang would have told me some story and indirectly give me advice. She would have hugged me and whispered in my ear that I was much stronger that I thought. That I should tackle this problem with all the strength I had within me, and go on.  
  
So I did. I moved on, and let the most important people in my life go. Not really, but just enough so that I could live on without slowly going insane. And whenever I had a setback, I looked at one of the many pictures I had of me and my friends or I would look at the black ribbon wrapped around my arm, the red hood hanging around my shoulders, the white pin which held my hair up or the orange scarf around my neck, and I would be okay again. Never really okay, but okay enough to keep going.  
  
Teardrops fell on the picture, and I watched the paper absorbing the water. I hadn’t noticed I had started crying. More tears started falling down, now landing on the wood of the counter of the bar. I had put the picture away in my inside pocket again, afraid my tears would damage it. I didn’t need to look at it to know what it looked like anyway. The picture was permanently set in my mind, even the little details were there.  
  
The way we had our arms around each other, holding each other as close as possible, as if one of us could suddenly disappear. The only thing our faces gave away was relief. Relief we were still there, unharmed and together. That there still was a team RWBYE, with the people representing these letters still alive and well.  
More often than I would like to admit, we had close calls. Swords missing us, just the width of a hair further to the right, and one of us would have been seriously injured, or even dead.   
  
I don’t want to recall the fear that struck you in that moment, when you felt the air moving beside you, and you could almost feel the sharp metal touching your skin. The fear was even bigger when I saw it happening to one of my friends. The fear of not being able to carry out my duty, not being able to protect them from harm was sometimes so big I felt like I was drowning.   
  
The tears had stopped falling, and the bartender finally returned, placing the drink in front of me. He would surely have noticed my red eyes, my wet face and the sad look on my face, but he didn’t say a word. The Strawberry Sunrise with a little umbrella, Yang’s standard order if we went out, didn’t taste as good as Junior’s, but it wasn’t bad.   
  
Slowly my hand reached up to my left arm, touching the black ribbon. Then I touched the red hood, the orange scarf and the white pin in my hair. Everything was okay. They were still there. Maybe not in physical form, but I felt their presences still around me each day.   
  
Some people never leave us. Their essence is still with us, their aura still accompanies our paths, and we can hear their voices, we can see their smiles, feel their gazes, feel _them._  
The people you love and who love you never leave you, because now they are eternal and one day, you will find each other again.  
  


 


	4. Chapter 4

“Monsters! Demons. Prowlers of the night. Yes, the creatures of Grimm have many names. But I merely refer to them as prey.”   
  
I sighed. I agreed to become a huntress, not to listen to some old geezer who thought he was funny. Glancing to my left, I saw Blake and Yang paying attention, Weiss writing down some notes and Ruby looked like she would do anything to be somewhere different. Same Ruby, same.  
  
“Our planet is absolutely teeming with creatures that would love nothing more than to tear you to pieces.” Yeah, humans can be pretty violent sometimes.   
“And that’s where we come in. Hunters. Huntresses” The professor winked at us, and Yang rolled her eyes.   
  
“Individuals who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves. From what you ask? The very world!” He paused, apparently expecting us to applaud or something. One student stood up and yelled something. The rest of us kept silent, and he sat down again quickly.   
  
“That’s is what you are training to become”, professor Port continued. “But first, a story.” Oh no, not again. I groaned and fell down on my book, on the brink of just throwing myself out of the window.   
  
I heard Ruby and Yang laughing, and lifted my head to look at the source of their fun. I could use some fun. Ruby held up a piece of paper with a ridiculous drawing of professor Port. I liked it, and smiled. Weiss glared daggers at us, then returned her attention to professor Ports story.  
  
“A true huntsman must be honourable.” Ruby was holding her book and apple up with her pencil, a great accomplishment I must say.  
  
“A true huntsman must be dependable.” Soft snores came from my right, Ruby was probably asleep again.  
  
“A true huntsman must be strategic, well-educated and wise! So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?” Oh oh.  
  
“I do sir!” There it was. Weiss had shut her hand up high in the sky, as if the professor otherwise wouldn’t see her. I had seen her getting more annoyed with every second passing because of Ruby’s behaviour, and I was a little bit afraid of what was going to happen next.  
  
“Well then, let’s find out. Step forward and face your opponent.”   
  
Weiss stood up, leaving the classroom, probably to get her weapon and change into her battle outfit.   
  
“This is going to be fun. She was so angry I could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears!” Yang laughed, and we laughed with her. Yeah, Weiss was a bit, stressed? I didn’t really blame her. It is hard to grow up in such a famous family, always having to behave according to protocol and never being allowed to make a mistake. It changed you as a person, and not in a positive way.  


* * *

“Gooo Weiss!” Yang yelled, punching her arm up high.  
  
“Fight well!” Blake was waving with a flag of team RWBYE (I had no idea where she got it).

“Yeah, represent teaaaam RWBYE!” Ruby said excited. Weiss lowered her weapon and glanced angrily at Ruby. “Ruby, I am trying to focus!”  
  
Ruby flinched a bit, and a sad look appeared in her eyes. “Oh, sorry.”  
  
“Alright”, professor Port began. “Let the match begin!” And with that he slashed the lock of the cage, causing the beast locked inside it to jump out and attack Weiss. She jumped out of the way, landing a hit on the creature while doing that. The creature was a boarbatusk, with two tusks at the front of its face. Everything about the creature screamed dangerous, from the burning red eyes to the colour pattern of its fur and scales (I don’t know what else to call them).  
  
The boarbatusk stopped, turned around and made a low sound at Weiss, clearly angered by her attack, and his missing one. Weiss set off, almost flying toward the beast with her weapon in front of her. I understood what she wanted to do. Piercing it through its heart is the best way to kill it fast, without the risk of your aura running out and getting harmed. Unfortunately, the boarbatusk had expected the attack, and caught her weapon between its tusks, effectively disarming Weiss.   
  
“Come on Weiss, show it who is boss!” Weiss once again turned her head towards Ruby, and the beast took his chance and threw her weapon behind it, blocking the way towards it. Now Weiss had a little problem. The boarbatusk attacked, this time not missing her and Weiss fell on the ground, clearly lost without her weapon. She looked up just in time to notice the beast running towards her, determined to finish her off this time. She rolled out of the way and sprinted towards her weapon, grasping it again.   
  
“Weiss, go for its belly! There’s no armour underneath-“   
  
“Stop telling me what to do!”, Weiss raged, interrupting Ruby.  
  
The boarbatusk appeared to have finally lost its patience, and rolled over the floor in high speed towards Weiss. Weiss stopped him with one of her glyphs, throwing the creature on his back on the floor. Then she jumped, landing on another glyph, set off and pierced the Grimm through its heart, killing it.  
  
“Bravo! It appears we are indeed in the presence of a true huntress in training. I am afraid that is all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned reading and, stay vigilant. Class dismissed.”  
  
Weiss was panting, and Ruby was silently staring at her with the hurt look of a kicked puppy. Then Weiss turned around and stamped away. Ruby looked at us, and I nodded, then she stood up and followed her.

* * *

“You think they are going to be okay?” Blake asked.   
  
We returned to our dorm, as classes for today were over. We were each sitting on our own beds, with all our study books scattered around us. Did teachers ever hear of ‘relax time’ and not only having their subject to study for?  
  
“Yeah, I think they just have to adapt to the new circumstances. It is a bit strange to suddenly be here, at Beacon, living together with four other people. Constantly being together can be a bit strange and unsettling first”, I answered. Yang nodded,  
  
“And if Weiss does yell at my sister like that again and hurt her, she will hurt too.” Yang had said it probably as a joke, but her voice had a dangerous undertone, telling me she meant what she said.  
  
We fell silent again, redirecting our attention to our load of homework that we would never be able to finish. Unless we divided the work, what we obviously did. Each one of us made the homework of all three of us for one subject. It was a good and effective system, saving us lots of work and we still had our homework finished the other day.  
  
The door opened, and Ruby stepped inside. She didn’t look like she cried recently and she was smiling a little bit. Yang immediately stood up and walked towards her, wrapping her in a hug.   
  
“You okay sis?” Yang let Ruby go, but kept hold of her shoulders, looking in her eyes.  
  
“Yeah, I talked with Weiss, but she still isn’t very happy. Yelled some things at me like I shouldn’t have been the leader of team RWBYE, that I was too childish and unfocused and that professor Ozpin made a mistake. But then professor Ozpin showed up and told me he thought I was suited to be the leader, and he didn’t believe he made a mistake. So I will just trust him!”   
  
I smiled. Good old Ozpin, always knowing when it was time to make an appearance. Weiss was still a bit of a problem, but she had her heart at the good place. She just didn’t know how to actually be friends with someone.  
  
Yang smiled too. “Okay then. So I don’t have to beat Weiss up for making you feel bad?”  
  
“No of course not!”, Ruby laughed. “Besides, I don’t think you will be able too, Weiss is pretty strong you know.”   
  
Yang slapped her on her arm. “You jerk!” They continued their playful banter, and Blake and I smiled at each other, relieved Ruby was feeling okay. Even if we only were for together for a day, I already felt a deep connection with my four roommates (maybe a less strong bond with Weiss, but that could be fixed later). It was like we had been friends for years, being completely comfortable with each other. Maybe it had something to do with past lives, you never know.   
  
We continued making our homework and studying for our classes tomorrow, with Ruby now joining us. The girl might be young, but she understood things so quickly you would almost not notice the age difference. Maybe her semblance had something to do with it, although that felt a bit like she was cheating. Weiss didn’t return to our dorm and also didn’t show up at dinnertime. We just let her be, nobody wanted to face an angry Weiss again.   
  
“Goodnight team RWBYE!” Ruby jumped on her bed while yelling her goodnight.  
  
The three of us all said our goodnights too and soon after that we all fell asleep, tired of the busy day. 

* * *

Some light shone on my eyes, waking me up. Ugh, why didn’t the universe ever let me have a good night sleep? Slowly I opened my eyes, then realizing Weiss returned to our dorm. She stood by Ruby’s bed, silently talking with her. I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but that was almost impossible.  
  
“Ruby, I think you have what it takes to be a good leader. Just know, that I am going to be the best teammate you will ever have.”   
  
I smiled, happy Weiss finally decided to accept Ruby. And apparently I was going to have some competition about who was the best teammate. With that last thought, I fell asleep again, still with a smile on my face.  



	5. Chapter 5

The morning went as usual. I woke up, got some coffee and tea for my teammates and then, when I returned, most of them were slowly waking up. They changed, we got some breakfast and then headed off to our classes, together or separate. I liked living together with these four girls more than I first thought I would. It was nice to always have someone present, someone who you can talk to or just sit comfortable with in silence.   
  
I was about to walk towards my next class together with my team, combat training, when professor Ozpin approached me.  
Combat training was one of my favourite subjects, as I actually had the feeling I was training to become a huntress. Professor Goodwitch was our teacher, and a good one she was. I wasn’t allowed yet to participate in the battles, but she promised I would be allowed to fight in a match next week.  
  
I actually wasn’t that eager to fight for a crowd. I hated being in the middle of the attention, and also didn’t want people to treat me differently because of my performance.    
My team on the other hand was super excited, as they hadn’t seen me fight alone. Of course we trained together, but that was different. In a team you learn mostly how to fight together, there isn’t much focus on your own battle skills and style. I had seen all of my teammates fight alone, and studied their battle style, but they hadn’t gotten the opportunity yet to do the same with me.  
  
Ruby was fast and extremely skilled with her scythe, but once she was without it, she didn’t stand a chance against a skilled opponent.

Weiss was fast too, had an amazing technique and control of her glyphs. She did need some work on her stamina and strength, and just as Ruby she was lost without her weapon.

Blake was almost like a ninja: she attacked fast and after that attack she disappeared even faster. It was hard to actually land a hit on her, but once you figured out her ‘system’, you had a big chance of beating her. 

Yang was the embodiment of power, but she was also intelligent and flexible. She was fast to notice her opponent’s weaknesses and used them to knock them out. However, she did rely on her semblance too much, and if you managed to block her hits, she would be tired, weak and easy to beat.   
  
“Miss Elisa, can I have a word with you?” Turning towards the sound, I saw professor Ozpin standing behind me, with his trademark mug in his right hand. “Of course.” I turned back towards my team, silently asking my leader for permission. Ruby nodded, so I followed professor Ozpin to his office. He didn’t say a word, so the elevator ride was a bit awkward. In his office, he sat down and encouraged me to do the same.   
  
“I apologise for interrupting your school day and causing you to miss your lesson, but this is important.” Professor Ozpin didn’t sound very remorseful, but I nodded, playing along with his lie.   
  
“I want to know what you think. What are your experiences? What do you think of your teammates? Have you got any special things to tell me?”   
  
I didn’t quite understand why professor Ozpin was asking me all these questions. I could understand why he wanted to know my opinion of the school and my teammates, but that last question. Why would I have any special things to tell him?   
  
“I like the school, although I sometimes struggle with keeping up with all the homework. My teammates are extremely talented, so I have no concerns on that part”, I began. “I don’t understand your last question, I’m sorry.”  
  
Professor Ozpin nodded, sipping from his mug again. I still didn’t know what exactly was in his mug, but I was determined to find out some day.  
  
“Something special, something you would like to tell me,” professor Ozpin began.  He looked like he was reconsidering his words for a moment, then continued. “Maybe even about yourself.”  
  
I let his words sink in for a moment. So this was why he wanted to speak to me. He wanted information about me. Well, bad luck for him, he wasn’t going to get anything.  
  
“I had the feeling you already knew a lot about me professor, so I don’t think there is the need for me to tell you anything else about me.” My voice sounded dangerous, challenging Ozpin.   
  
“Very well. Thank you for your cooperation, miss Elisa. And if you ever feel the need to talk to me, please don’t hesitate to ask.” 

“Of course professor.” And with that I walked out of his office, feeling his look burning on my back.

* * *

I walked inside our dorm, causing my teammates to look up from their work.   
  
“Yeaah Elisa is back!” Ruby sang out, jumping down from her bed and throwing herself around my neck.   
  
“What did Ozpin want from you?” Blake asked, her golden eyes observing me intensely.  
  
I tried to get Ruby off, but it was like she glued herself to me, so I gave up. “Oh, nothing special. He just wanted to know if I felt at ease and that there weren’t any problems.” Blake kept looking at me, probably trying to determine whether I was telling the truth or not. Surprise Blake, I am a pretty good liar. Well, I was not exactly lying. I was only telling half of the truth, that is technically not lying.   
  
Ruby finally let me go after I almost forgot how nice it is to go through life without a person hanging on your neck. “Oh yeah, Elisa, we are going on a fieldtrip tomorrow to the Forest of Forever Fall. We have to collect samples from the trees there or something.” Yang explained.   
  
The Forest of Forever Fall? I had been there once, but didn’t really get to have a good look at it. Second chances are always nice.   
  
“Let me guess, it is always fall there?”, I joked.   
  
“Wow Elisa, I never knew you were so smart!”, Yang played along. “If you are so smart, I propose you do all our homework!”   
  
Ruby, Blake and Weiss yelled some agreements, then we all started laughing. Oh gosh, I loved these people.

* * *

 

The description of the mission was simple: get the documents and then return as fast as possible. Of course it didn’t actually was that simple. First I had to travel to Vacuo, where our informant lived with her family. But no, they couldn’t live in a small cozy town, no, they just had to live in the desert.   
  
Nice, I love almost dying because of thirst and extreme heat.  
  
Anyways, after a week of travelling, I finally arrived. The extreme conditions in the desert had worn me out, and all I wanted was a comfortable bed and sleep for a few days. Unfortunately, I had to get these documents to Oscar as soon as possible, so no sleep for me.   
  
I knocked at the door, and a woman, about 30 years old, opened it.  
  
“What do you want?” She had a very low voice, especially for a woman, and her eyes were almost as golden as the sand all around us. She reminded me of a good friend of mine.  
  
I showed her my identification, and she immediately stepped aside, inviting me inside the house. The house wasn’t that big, but big enough to fit a family. It was completely made of wood, what made the house come over as old and full of stories. It probably did have some great stories to tell, as I knew it had given shelter to quite some hunters and huntresses, for example my friends Sun and Neptune.  
  
The woman led me inside the living room, where a little boy, at most eight years old, was sitting at the couch, watching tv. “Wait here for a moment, I will get the documents.” I nodded, and she walked away further inside the house.  
  
From the place where I stood, I could see the place hadn’t changed much since I had last been here, almost 40 years ago. The little boy looked at me with big eyes, and I smiled. I always had had a weakness for kids.  
  
He took that as a sign to stand up and walk towards me. “You are a huntress, aren’t you?”  
  
“I am.” I didn’t really want to talk, especially not about my job. Little kids didn’t need to know of the horrors inside their world, and it was my job to keep it that way. These horrors already ruined my life, and I was determined to never let that happen to a kid again.   
  
“My mommy says hunters and huntresses are really strong.” I didn’t replay. “But she also said they have a very sad job, because they see a lot of terrible things happen. Like, their friends dying. And they carry a lot of regrets. Is that true? Did you see some of your friends die?”   
  
Why did this woman tell her kid such things? Kids shouldn’t be worrying about these things, they should be playing outside without a care in the world. However, I would answer the kids questions. When I was a kid, I always hated it when adults wouldn’t answer my questions. At that time, I didn’t understand that some things you just don’t want to know.   
  
“Yes, we do carry a lot of regrets. Mostly about when we could not save someone. And yes, I have experienced all the deaths of my friends.” I didn’t feel the need to explain things any further. I had given the kid what he wanted.  
  
“What is your biggest regret?”   
  
Surprised by his question, I blinked a few times. My biggest regret? Why did this kid ask so many questions, and why were they all about things I didn’t want to talk about?  
  
“My biggest regret is believing in the future too much. I always took things too much for granted, always expecting it to be there the next day. I never treated something like it was the last time. And I think that is on one side a good thing, but on the other side a very bad thing, because when it actually is the last time, you never get a chance to really say goodbye to it. Or to a person.”  
  
The kid looked at me with astonishment. “Doesn’t it hurt, being a huntress?”  
  
I knelt down on my knees, so that I could look him right in the eyes. “It does. It breaks your heart, and even if it heals again, you are never the same. But you know why we do this? Because all the pain is worth it. It is worth it because if I weren’t a huntress I would have never met all of my amazing friends, and I would have never met you.” I held his gaze for a moment, then stood up as I felt the woman approaching again.  
  
She handed me the documents, five of them. “Here you are. Take good care of them.”  
  
“I will”, I promised and then turned around to make my leave. Walking out of the door felt strange without Sun or Neptune there to wave me goodbye. Instead of them, the woman and her son stood there in the door opening.

“Bye miss huntress!”, I heard the kid yelling.  
  
I smiled and waved. Then I set off again, back to Vale. I would give the documents to Oscar, and then return to my once full, but now empty house. That’s is just how life is, I guess. It is full, until you lose the people you love. Then you haven’t got a thing in the world anymore.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My home is not a place. It is the sound of your voice, the feeling of your arms. I can leave home, I can run, but you will always have my heart, so I will always return to you."

“Yes students, the Forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful, but we are not here to sight-see. Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside the forest.” Professor Goodwitch halted, then faced us. “And I am here to make sure none of you die while doing so.” Apparently professor Goodwitch did have a sense of humour, as she apparently believed we could actually get killed here.  
  
“Each of you is to gather one jar’s worth of red sap. However, this forest is full with the creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates.” Almost every forest in Remnant is filled with Grimm, what’s new?  
  
“We will rendezvous here back at 4 o’clock. Have fun!” Yes, collecting sap from trees in a forest filled with Grimm is like the embodiment of fun.   
  
Ruby started walking deeper inside the forest, and the rest of team RWBYE followed her. I saw Jaune sort of being kidnapped by Cardin, leaving his team behind. He had been bullied by Cardin since day one, and I had wanted to break Cardin’s legs and some other bones a numerous of time, but Jaune insisted they were ‘good buds’. Yeah sure, a good bud who hurt you, forced you to make his homework and do a lot of other stuff for you. Sounds like an amazing friendship.  
  
Pyrrha also seemed troubled by Jaune’s behaviour, but she turned around and went after her own team. I followed her example. I wasn’t here to fix Jaune’s problems in life. Let’s collect some sap! (Insert heavy sarcasm).

* * *

Collecting the sap wasn’t that hard. The problem was that Yang and Ruby had discovered the sap tasted extremely good and continued to drink it even faster than we could collect it. Within an hour, I had considered knocking them out for about two hundred times, and before I would actually snap, I decided to go deeper inside the forest and collect the sap by myself.   
  
Nobody stopped me or asked where I was going, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw they probably didn’t even knew I was gone.   
  
The first few weeks of school I hadn’t really noticed the difference between me and my teammates, but as the time went by, I was forced to admit it. Most of the time, I was a bit left out. I didn’t really blame my teammates, it was hard being a team of five people instead of four.   
The others were mostly together with their partner, leaving me behind while they had fun together. I was hurt and upset, and started to distance myself more and more from my teammates. If they wouldn’t accept me, I wouldn’t accept them. Deep inside I knew I acted childish, but I didn’t know another way to deal with it.  
  
Of course, I could go and talk with professor Ozpin, but that felt like giving in after that talk from yesterday. I had also thought about leaving Beacon and returning to the streets, but I knew I couldn’t do that. I had made a promise to protect these four girls, and I am not one to break promises.   
So I dealt with it in my own special way, silently hoping my teammates would call me out on my behaviour.   
  
I sat down beside this massive tree, hugging my knees and burying my face inside my arms. I knew I was only acting this mean and childish because I was scared. It wasn’t really my teammates fault, I just wasn’t used to being around people, good people at least. It was pathetic, how I still let them influence me that much, and how scared I still was to trust people.   
All that talk about protecting my teammates, my friends, but I couldn’t even let them in. I was holding them away from me, what caused them to distance themselves from me. They probably thought I didn’t want to hang out with them, but the opposite was true.   
  
I was holding them away, because I was scared to death that I would be hurt, I was terrified of being weak. But this wasn’t making me stronger. If anything, it made me weaker, because I did all this out of fear. That moment I promised myself I would reach out to my teammates again, let them know I wanted them around and pushed myself to overcome my fear. Fear should never stop you from moving forward.  
  
Standing up, I filled the jar I had taken with me with sap from the huge tree. Done, now I could return to my teammates. I didn’t know where exactly I was in the forest, or which way I had come from, but I didn’t have to. I could sense the aura’s of my teammates. Light, Cold, Darkness and Warmth. They would lead me back to them by themselves, even without knowing they did.   
  
“Grimm! Run, Grimm!” I immediately reacted by placing my hand on my weapon. The shout sounded far away, about where my team was. I had to hurry. Then I heard a roar, much and much closer this time. Seconds later I was confronted with an Ursa, his red eyes burning into my dark green ones. Okay, you wanted some? You could come and get it.   
  
The Ursa raged towards me, and I waited there for him, not moving yet. As he almost hit me, I finally jumped over his head, landing behind him. Taking my chance, I took my sword out of my scabbard, stabbing the Ursa and piercing his heart. He fell down, instantly dead. Now it was time to find my teammates. I felt their aura’s, stronger now, like a beating heart. I ran away, leaving the Ursa’s already disappearing body behind.  
  
When I returned to the place where me and my team had been collecting sap before, no one was there anymore. My team apparently had splitted up. Ruby and Weiss headed off somewhere together with Pyrrha, and Blake and Yang went the other way together with Nora and Ren. I made the choice to chase Ruby, Weiss and Pyrrha, as I felt Grimm approaching them. They would need all the help they could get.

* * *

I sprinted as fast as I could, desperate to make sure my friends were okay. Now as I was getting closer, I sensed that Jaune and Cardin were there too, their aura’s fainter than that of Ruby, Weiss and Pyrrha.  Just let them be okay, let them be okay.  
  
“We could. Or perhaps, we could keep it our little secret.” Pyrrha said, then walked away towards me. She nodded as a greeting, what I returned. I had no clue what had happened here, but everyone seemed okay. The only injury I could see from here was Cardin’s hurt pride. Jaune helped him up, said something to him I couldn’t hear, then walked away too, following Pyrrha.   
  
He had a painfully looking bruise on his right cheek, but as I watched it, it already started to heal, thanks to his aura. He seemed to have a lot of it, as it was able to heal his wounds so fast, even after a battle.  
  
Weiss and Ruby now came standing next to me, and feeling their aura’s that close again made me feel sort of safe.   
  
“Hey, you okay?” I asked.  
  
“Yeah, we didn’t actually have to fight. The Grimm was so terrified when he saw us, he instantly ran away!” Ruby joked, and I patted her on her head.   
  
“Of course Ruby, I believe you.”   
  
Even Weiss smiled at our conversation. Maybe the ice of the Ice Queen was finally melting a little bit? Then Ruby decided it was a good moment for a hug with her partner, earning herself a slap on the arm and a scolding from Weiss. Okay, maybe not, but I knew Weiss was slowly opening up, letting herself trust us, and I was extremely proud of her.   
  
When you grow up in such a toxic household as Weiss, you learn you can’t trust anybody. Not your enemies (duh), but not even your friends, the people who claim to be always there for you when you need them. However, you soon discover these ‘friends’ only want to be friends with you because you are rich, and once they get what they need, they leave. In a situation like that, when your heart breaks more and more with each betrayal, it soon learns to shut itself off, not letting anyone in, and steadily growing cold. As the saying goes, nobody can hurt you if you don’t let them close enough to matter.   
  
We reunited with Blake and Yang, who had set off to find professor Goodwitch. Everyone assembled around her, and she announced that we were going back to Beacon, as we all had gathered our jars of sap. The airships soon arrived to take us back to Beacon.   
  
“O my god, I am so tired. I am going to sleep for three days, so please don’t wake me up tomorrow.” Yang mumbled. We all said our agreements, every one of us both physically and mentally exhausted. Fortunately, we had weekend tomorrow, which meant sleeping out, if Ruby didn’t forget again to turn her alarm off. I was going to destroy that stupid thing one day if it kept me any longer from having my well-earned rest.   
  
“Let’s go home, team RWBYE!” Ruby yelled out, scaring a crow who had sat in the tree next to us, causing him to fly away.  
  
Home, I thought, while looking at my team. My home was wherever they were, and I had a strange feeling I wasn’t the only one thinking that.


	7. Chapter 7

Completely exhausted I jumped on my bed, face buried in my pillow, not planning to go anywhere anymore today. It was Friday afternoon, just after our last lessons. We always had combat training as our last class on Friday, which was awful. We already were tired of a whole week of school, and our last lesson required us to move more than we wanted to. In my case, I didn’t want to move at all.  
  
“Come on! Why are you lying on bed doing nothing?! You know that we are going out, don’t you?”   
  
I slowly lifted my face up from the pillow, my ears hurting from Weiss’ yelling. Oh yeah right, the docks. Weiss wanted to ‘welcome’ the students who were coming in from Vacuo for the Vytal Festival Tournament. In reality, she just wanted to spy on them so that she would have the upper hand in the tournament.  
  
“Weiss, I am really tired, can’t I just skip this one? I will accompany you anywhere you want next time, but can you just let me be for now?” I tried to sound as pleading as possible and showed my best puppy eyes. It didn’t work, of course. It never worked on Weiss, graduated Ice Queen with no heart.  
  
“No! We all agreed to this, so you can’t back out of it last minute!” I couldn’t remember when exactly I had agreed to this. Probably when I was incredibly tired, just as now, and I didn’t really know what I was saying yes to. Stupid past me, always making bad decisions.   
  
I dragged myself out of my bed, as slowly as physically possible just to annoy Weiss. She glared daggers at me, but I didn’t care. “Okay, I am ready. Let’s go.”

* * *

“The Vytal Festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!” Yeah, just as wonderful as you dragging me with you just because you wanted to spy on people Weiss. Weiss did seem extremely happy, what made me happy too. I loved seeing people smile and being happy.  
  
“I don’t think I have ever seen you smile so much Weiss. It is kinda weirding me out.” The last part Ruby whispered, she probably didn’t want to endure another famous Weiss Schnee scolding. Deep inside, everyone was at least a bit afraid of Weiss. Wow, I have to write that one down, that was a good quote.  
  
“How could you not smile? A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances, parades, a tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organisation that goes into this event is simply breath taking.” I had never seen Weiss so happy before, even if she made this whole event sound incredibly boring.  
  
“You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring.” Thank you Yang.  
  
“Quiet you.”   
  
Weiss did have a point. It was incredible to think about how many people were needed to plan this, how many hours they spent organising all this. It was even more incredible to think about how all this even started.   
  
It all began, as most things do, with war. The First Great War of Remnant was a horrible war, in which many brave souls lost their lives while trying to protect their kingdoms, loved ones and themselves. The war eventually came to an end on a small island named Vytal. There the leaders of humanity decided to not fight each other anymore, but instead fight together against their common enemy: the creatures of Grimm. Here, they also constructed the future of modern society, establishing new laws, new academies and new traditions. One of them, the Vytal Festival, created to celebrate the peace between the four kingdoms.   
  
Every two years a chosen kingdom would open its doors to the world, allowing citizens from all over Remnant to meet and learn from each other’s cultures. The highlight of this festival was the Vytal Festival Tournament, in which warriors from all the huntsmen academies could come together and test their strength in a safe and friendly competitive environment. The purpose of all this was to motivate hunters and huntresses to never settle for mediocracy, but to always strive for the absolute best they could be, what meant to keep learning new things and improving yourself.   
  
It is true that all of this began with war, but without it, the peace and greatness humanity now has accomplished would have never been achieved. That proves that there actually always is a good side and a bad side to something.  
  
“Woah.” Ruby suddenly stopped and stared at something. Realizing I had drifted off, I returned back to Remnant. I had no idea what my teammates were talking about just now, but they hadn’t needed me in the conversation, so it couldn’t have been very important.   
  
Ruby was staring at a Dust shop that was normally open at this time, except for now. The glass of the windows laid scattered around on the ground and two police men were busy observing the building and its surroundings, almost certainly looking for clues about what happened.  
  
“What happened here?” We had walked over to the two policemen, all of us eager to know what exactly took place here. It was Ruby who asked the question that was on all our minds.   
  
“Robbery. Second Dust shop to be hit this week. This place is turning into a jungle”, one of the detectives answered, then walked over to his colleague.  
  
“They left all the money again.”   
  
“Yeah, just doesn’t make a lick of sense. Who needs that much Dust?” Well, I don’t know mister detective, maybe criminals?  
  
“I dunno, ya know what I mean?”  
  
“You thinking the, uh, the White Fang?” The White Fang? Hmm, the detective might be on to something. The only criminal organisation I could think of that already had a history of stealing Dust was indeed the White Fang.  
  
“Hmph. The White Fang. What an awful bunch of degenerates”, Weiss said. Oh no Weiss, don’t say that. You might-  
  
“What’s your problem?” Whoomp, there it was. Now we got an angry Blake, thank you so much Weiss.  
  
“My problem? I simply don’t care for the criminally insane”, Weiss snarked at Blake.  
  
“The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths. They’re a collection of misguided Faunus”, Blake replied.  
  
“Misguided?! They want to wipe humanity off the planet!”  
  
“So then they are very misguided! Even then, it doesn’t explain why they would rob a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale.”  
  
“Hmm, Blake has got a point. Besides, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago. Maybe it was him”, Ruby interrupted.   
  
“That still doesn’t change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum. Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat and steal.” Weiss began again. Ugh, didn’t that girl know when to drop something?  
  
“That’s not necessarily true.” Yang said.   
  
“Hey! Stop that Faunus!”, someone shouted from behind us. Fortunately, that distracted the others, so that they didn’t start a cat fight or something. We ran towards the sound, just in time to see a monkey Faunus jumping off the boat that just sailed in. Most certainly he sneaked into the boat, and was now discovered by the crew. Hanging upside down he ate a banana, completely at peace, while the detectives from earlier approached him.  
  
“Hey. Get down from there this instant.” Detective 1, as I decided to call him for now, ordered.  
  
In response he threw the banana peel in the face of the detective. I liked this guy’s methods already. He then jumped on the ground again, and sprinted away, coming our way. He ran by us and – wait, did that guy just wink at Blake? Never mind. And he got away, that is what I wanted to say. Wow that rhymes, I really should become a poet.  
  
“Well Weiss, you wanted to see the competition, and there is goes.” Yang gestured towards the already disappearing Faunus.  
  
“Quick! We have to observe him!” Weiss sprinted away, with the rest of team RWBYE on her heels. We easily kept up with the Faunus boy and the detectives, until Weiss turned around a corner and ran into a girl. We all stopped, and watched the Faunus boy jump out of sight, leaving us and the detectives behind.  
  
“No! He got away!”, Weiss yelled out, apparently oblivious to the fact that she knocked over a girl.   
  
“Uhm, Weiss?” Yang said, pointing at the girl Weiss knocked over, who was still on the ground with Weiss.  
  
“Euh!” Weiss instantly backed away and re-joined our group. The girl didn’t seem like she really wanted to get up, as she kept laying on the ground. Maybe they had floor heating here, you never knew in a fancy city as this one.   
  
“Salutations!”, the girl greeted, waving at us.  
  
“Um, hello.” Ruby said a bit unsure. “Are you okay?” Yang followed up.  
  
“I am wonderful, thank you for asking.” The girl still laid there on the ground, making no move to get up. We all looked at each other, confused and wondering why we always ended up in this weird situations.  
  
“Do you wanna… get up?” Yang asked.   
  
“Yes.” The girl answered, and finally got up. “My name is Penny. It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Yeah, it was always nice to know that I still wasn’t the most mentally instable person in Remnant.  
  
“Hi Penny, I am Ruby.”  
  
“I am Weiss.”   
  
“Blake.”   
  
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Blake slapped Yang on her arm. “Oh, I am Yang.”  
  
“Elisa.”   
  
“It is a pleasure to meet you!” The girl, Penny I corrected myself, repeated. Seriously, what was wrong with her?  
  
“You already said that.” Weiss stated. Well, thank you Captain Obvious. Captain Obvious Ice Queen, that sounded quite nice.   
  
“So I did!” You could say much about Penny, but she was really optimistic, not even letting a typical snarky Ice Queen comment discourage her. Respect bro, respect.  
  
“Well, sorry for running into you.” Weiss said while turning away, urging us to increase the distance between us and Penny as soon as possible. Sometimes Weiss did have good ideas, emphasis on sometimes.  
  
“Take care, friend!” Ruby said, then followed Weiss.   
  
We walked away as fast as we could without literally running, what is really hard, just so you know. You have to have talent for it, a lot of talent. And training. Blood, sweat and tears. Ah whatever, why am I even trying anymore.  
  
“She was weird.” Finally someone said what we were all thinking. Thank you Yang!  
  
“Now, where did that Faunus riffraff run off to.” Ah, there was the famous I-have-a-mission-and-I-will-not-rest-until-I-complete-it Weiss Schnee.  
  
“What did you call me?” Hmm, that voice didn’t sound like that from one of my teammates. I saw something red and green walking by me. Penny. Oh no.  
  
“Oh, I am really sorry. I didn’t think you heard me.” Yang stammered, while Weiss was trying to figure out where Penny had come from so fast.  
  
“No, not you.” Penny passed Yang, having only one goal in mind. Ruby. “You.”   
  
“Me! I-I don’t know, I – what I, uhm.” I saw Ruby desperately thinking about something she could have said that put her in this position. Good luck with that Rubes, you are on your own now.  
  
“You called me friend! Am I really your friend?” Oh no, no no no no no. This couldn’t be happening. Please Ruby, just reject her as swiftly as possible. Don’t say yes, don’t be the friendly little goofball you always are. Apparently the rest of my team shared my thought, as they were trying to silently convince Ruby to say no. Of course she didn’t get it.  
  
“Uhm yeah, sure. Why not?” Me and the rest of team WBYE fell on the ground of shock. This was a complete nightmare. Please tell me this was a dream. Could someone pinch me and let me wake up?  
  
“Ahaha, sensational! We can paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!” Oh no, the clingy modus was already activated. Run, Ruby, run as fast as your legs can carry you! And please take me with you.  
  
“Ooh, is this what it was like when you met me?”, Ruby whispered to Weiss, who was busy brushing off any dust or sand of her clothes.   
  
“No, she seems far more coordinated.” Wow, savage Weiss strikes again. And you are just going to take that Ruby?  
  
“So, what are you doing in Vale?”, Yang interrupted, trying to stop Ruby and Weiss from starting a fight with each other, again.   
  
“I am here to fight in the tournament!” I saw Weiss immediately looking far more interested than a few seconds ago, her spy mode activated once more.  
  
“Wait, you are fighting in the tournament?” Weiss asked sceptically. I understood her doubts, Penny didn’t really look like a fighter, and certainly not like a huntress in training.   
  
“I am combat ready!”, Penny exclaimed, while saluting to Weiss. This girl really needed someone to guide her, although I was afraid she already was a lost cause. Why was she even walking around the city, alone? Didn’t she have a team, as she stated she was here to fight in the tournament?  
  
“Forgive me, but you hardly look the part.” This was a magical moment in my life, I finally agreed with something Weiss said. Please wait a second, I have to go lie down a moment. Oh, this was the perfect opportunity to check if the floor here did have floor heating or not.   
  
“Says the girl wearing a dress.” So, Blake was still angry at Weiss. She did have a point, I couldn’t even properly walk in a dress. How could she fight in that thing?  
  
“It’s a combat skirt.” Weiss replied, and Ruby immediately stood beside her. “Yeah!” They high-fived while doing a badass pose together. I kept being amazed at the chemistry of Ruby and Weiss. One moment they were bickering and couldn’t stand to even see each other, the other moment they acted like best friends.  
  
“Wait a minute. If you are here for the tournament, does that mean you know that monkey-tailed rapscallion?” Weiss almost commanded the girl. I felt the temperature rising even more, and looking at Blake I knew why. She was furious, almost certainly because of how Weiss called the monkey Faunus from earlier.   
  
“The who?” Penny asked confused, sending us silent pleads for help. No thank you, I didn’t want Weiss to be angry at me. She was really scary when she was angry, and I am not as brave as you might think.  
  
“The filthy Faunus from the boat!” Suddenly, Weiss held a hand-made drawing in her right hand, while still holding Penny with the other. I don’t like to criticise the work of others, but the drawing looked terrible.   
  
“Why do you keep saying that?” Oh oh, here it comes.  
  
“Huh?” Weiss now redirected her attention to Blake, who spoke up again.  
  
“Stop calling him a rapscallion. Stop calling him a degenerate. He is a person!” Blake blurted.  
  
“Oh, I am sorry. Would you like me to stop referring to the trashcan as a trashcan, or this lamppost as a lamppost?” Weiss, honey, did you really want to die this much?  
  
“Stop it!”   
  
“Stop what? He clearly broke the law. Give him time, he will probably join up with these other Faunus in the White Fang.” O my God Weiss, now you were going to far. It is one thing to call the monkey Faunus bad names, but to assume he is a criminal? You can’t do that, you can’t judge a whole race for the actions of some.  
  
“You ignorant little brat!” Blake growled, balling her fists in anger. Weiss actually looked a bit taken aback by Blake’s comment. We all watched Blake turn around and walk away from us.  
  
“How dare you talk to me like that? I am your teammate!”   
  
“You are a judgemental little girl!”  
  
“What in the world makes you say that?” Ugh Weiss, were you that stupid or did you just don’t care?  
  
Ruby, Yang and I looked in fear at each other. This was not good. Small fights happen all the time if you were together as much as we were, but this wasn’t a small fight.   
  
“Uhh, I think we should probably go.”   
  
“Yes, before they try to kill each other.” I agreed with Yang.

* * *

“I don’t understand why this is causing such a problem!” Well, maybe because you are racist Princess.  
  
“That is the problem!” Blake reacted.   
  
We had already returned to our dorm, silently hoping that Blake and Weiss would stop fighting and make up. That hope was soon crushed, mostly because they didn’t even stop yelling at each other on our way to our dorm, and my ears were starting to hurt just a little bit. I hated yelling, I hated angry people and I hated conflicts.   
  
“You realize you are defending an organisation that hates humanity, don’t you?”   
  
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I zoned out all of the yelling. Peace, peace, peace. There was nothing wrong, everything would be okay. I felt my hand shaking a little bit, and I discreetly placed my other hand above it, so that no one would notice.   
I wanted Blake and Weiss to stop fighting, but I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t dare come between them, as they would just take me out together and then continued fighting. It would help for a few moments, a common enemy, but I wasn’t ready to sacrifice myself like that.  
  
Suddenly I noticed the tone of Weiss’ voice changing. First the only thing I heard was anger and betrayal, but now there were other emotions leaking through, fighting to be heard. Sadness. Loneliness. Hurt.   
  
“Ever since I was a child, I have watched family members disappear, board members executed, an entire train car full of dust… stolen. And every day, my father would come home furious, and that made for a very difficult childhood.”   
  
Now Ruby stepped in, placing her hand on Weiss’ shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Weiss, I-“  
  
“No! You want to know why I despise the White Fang? It is because they are a bunch of liars! Thieves! And murderers!”   
  
Blake seemed taken aback for a moment, as if something Weiss had said actually pained her. Hurt and regret flashed in her eyes for a moment, but disappearing as soon as they came.  
  
“Well maybe we were tired of being pushed around!” Shocked at her own exclamation, Blake stumbled back, away from us.   
  
“I-“ She turned around and ran away as fast her legs could take her. Ruby jumped forward a few meters, stretching out her hand towards the door, obviously contemplating whether to follow Blake or not. Apparently, she decided not to, as she kept standing there, her hand still up in the air, as if she was frozen in time.  
  
Blake would be gone for some time, although we did not know that at that time.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day was a bit of a weird one, as Blake still hadn’t returned. It felt extremely strange to jump out of my bed, expecting Blake to glare at me and then turn around to sleep some more, but instead I saw an empty bed. It felt even worse when I went to get everyone their coffee and tea, and I automatically also got a tea for Blake, completely forgetting I wouldn’t need that one today. The cup looked very lonely standing on the counter of our bureau, slowly getting cold, yet nobody dared to touch it.  
  
After Blake ran, we were first all a bit confused. I had known for some time that Blake was a Faunus, so I was only shocked that she revealed it to the others in that way. I believe Ruby and Yang had also been suspecting it, as Blake had shown us some very catlike habits, but wanted to give her the time she needed to tell us.  
  
Weiss on the other hand, did seem quite shocked. She sat down on her bed, and stayed there for a while, staring out of the window, deep in thoughts. I had always feared for Weiss’ reaction to Blake being a Faunus, as Faunus still were treated poorly in our society, especially by the richer people. The Schnee Dust Company was actually infamous for their treatment of Faunus, paying them less for the same work that humans did and it wasn’t uncommon that Faunus working there suddenly disappeared.  
  
Weiss had been raised to hate the Faunus, and grew to hate them even more because of her own suffering. I understood her situation, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t angry at her. She had called the monkey Faunus bad names, argued with Blake over it and still kept saying Faunus were worthless, even to the point of causing Blake to reveal her long kept secret.  
  
We got ourselves some breakfast and then headed back to our dorm. No one really knew what we should do, so we just sat on our beds in silence. Yesterday Yang already called Weiss out on her behaviour, but she reacted indifferent and had ignored us the rest of the evening.  
  
 Personally, I thought she felt guilty about what she did, but didn’t want to show it to us.  
  
Weiss had some problems with showing her emotions, and instead pushed people away. Her walls were less present than at the start of our schoolyear, but they still were there, and in this kind of situations it felt like she had built a castle around her. Nobody could get in, and none of her emotions could get out.  
  
“We should go look for her.” Ruby was the first one to speak up since the incident of yesterday. She was right, Blake could be in trouble. We had no idea where she went after she ran, and being alone on the streets wasn’t a good thing, especially at night.  
  
“You are right. Let’s go.” I said while jumping down on the ground from my bed. I had everything I needed, my weapon also already in my scabbard on my back (you never knew what would happen), so I was ready to go. The others also prepared to go looking for Blake, even Weiss, although she didn’t seem very enthusiastic. 

* * *

“Blaaake? Where are youuuu?”  
  
“Blaaake?”  
  
“Blake!!”  
  
Ruby, Yang and I were yelling the whole time, while Weiss was calmly walking beside us, clearly having no intention of helping us look for Blake. I was more than a bit annoyed, sometimes glaring at Weiss before resuming my calls for Blake. This wasn’t helping, it wasn’t like Blake was a missing cat that we had to find.  
  
“Weiss! You are not helping!” You just noticed that Ruby? She never had any intention of helping us, so why would she want to now?  
  
“Oh! You know who might be able to help! The police.” I really wondered if this girl had gotten water in her head instead of brains. Did she actually want to call the police to arrest her friend? I wouldn’t have guessed even Weiss would sink that low.  
  
“Ugh. Weiss.” Ruby crossed her arms, clearly disgusted by the idea.  
  
Weiss stepped forward, moving her arms to her side. “It was just an idea!”  
  
“Yeah, a bad one.” Ruby turned around and walked away from Weiss, not wanting to continue the conversation. It was already bad enough that Blake was gone, but now that Weiss seemed to hold on to her stupid believes, it would only get worse when Blake would come back. If we were able to find her in this enormous town with floor heating (I checked it, and it appears like there is indeed floor heating here. Fancy towns, you know what I mean?).  
  
“Weiss, I think we should hear her side of the story before we jump to any conclusions.” Yang’s voice sounded like she was trying to explain something to a toddler, but the toddler was reluctant to believe what she said, so she had to repeat it numerous times without improvement.  
  
“I think, when we hear it, you will all realize I was right.” Argh, that was enough. I was done. I had listened to Weiss’ dumb talk and her insults long enough, and didn’t say anything, but now I was completely done. I was going to tell her the truth, I was going to tell-  
  
“And I think Weiss’ hair looks wonderful today!” Almost literally jumping in the air, I turned around towards the already familiar voice. Penny. I was already annoyed, I could handle this on top of it too. Don’t blame me if someone doesn’t make it out of this day alive.  
  
“Agh! Penny! Where did you come from?!” Ruby exclaimed.  
  
“Hey guys! What are you up to?” Nothing much Penny, just trying to find our lost teammate who ran after she accidentally told us she is a Faunus, so just daily life.  
  
“We are looking for our friend Blake.” Yang explained.  
  
“Ooh! You mean the Faunus girl!” Wait, Penny knew too? Could she sense aura’s too? But how? We all stared at Penny in shock, and she stared politely back in return.  
  
“Wait. How did you know that?” Ruby asked, the question we all had running around in our minds.  
  
Maybe Penny was a lot better than I first thought during our first meeting. If she was indeed able to sense aura’s and even be that good that she could pick up that Blake is a Faunus, she was an incredibly skilled huntress. It was extremely hard to learn how to sense aura’s, as there aren’t many people who are able to do it, which results in the fact that there are not many people who can teach you how to do it, and it is also a totally different way of using your senses. It is difficult to describe it, but I will try.  
  
Imagine you are in a room filled with around a million people. Imagine all the different scents, sounds, people, feelings and presences. You feel all the people around you and you experience all the things they bring with them. Now try to focus on one thing, like that strange vanilla scent that follows you around. Try to only smell the vanilla scent. Try to zone out all the other things you see, hear, feel or smell, there only is the vanilla scent. You did it? That was not that hard, was it?  
  
Now imagine you have to run, still with the same amount of people. You are getting tired, you are losing your focus. It is getting harder and harder to only smell the vanilla scent, and not let any other experiences through. You can’t focus on the sound of people running around you, you can’t focus on where to place your feet so that you don’t fall, you can’t focus on controlling your breath, you can’t focus on the sweat dripping down from your back and face on the ground, you can’t focus on the people pushing you, you can’t focus on the screams you sometimes hear from people who can’t keep going anymore.  
And that is just the beginning of learning how to sense aura’s. Like I said, it is extremely hard, maybe even the hardest thing there is to learn in the whole world. If Penny could do that, at her age, she must be very special.  
  
“Uh, the cat ears?” Or she just saw the cat ears, that was a possibility too.  
  
“What cat ears? She wears a… bow.” And why do you think she does that, Yang? For fun? Although a bow could be very fashionable, I doubt Blake would do such a thing for fashion reasons.  
  
“She does like tuna a lot.” Ruby whispered, and I almost couldn’t stop myself from laughing. It was true, at all our meals the tuna would be gone within a few seconds, and no one had an idea where it went, until we saw Blake staring at us, trying real hard to not look guilty. She always failed.  
  
“So, where is she?” Penny asked innocently. If we knew that Penny, do you think we would be here, shouting Blake’s name at the top of our longs? I can’t speak for my teammates, but believe me, I wouldn’t.  
  
“We don’t know. She has been missing since Friday.” Ruby answered. Wow, it had been almost two days already. Time flew by when your Blake was missing.  
  
Penny gasped and ran towards Ruby, holding her by her arms. “That is terrible! Well, don’t you worry Ruby, my friend! I won’t rest until we find your teammate.”  
  
Oh dear, it was time for us to make a disappearance. Yang, Weiss and I ran as fast and as silent as we could, none of us wanting to spend anymore time with Penny than necessary. Don’t get me wrong, I did not dislike Penny, I was just too exhausted to have to ‘entertain’ her and to search for Blake at the same time. I also felt really guilty to leave Ruby there alone with Penny, but sacrifices must be made. 

* * *

“So, do we have any idea where to start looking?” Yang asked.  
  
I thought for a moment. Unfortunately, Blake had been so smart to hide her aura, so that I couldn’t sense where she was. That would have made our job much and much easier, but life isn’t that easy.  
  
“No, she has her aura hidden, so I can’t sense it. She could be anywhere.” I answered.  
  
Yang and Weiss suddenly stopped in their tracks, staring at me in disbelief. Confused I stared back. Did I say something wrong? Or was there chocolate spread on my face again? It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, and it hated it, because it put me in some awkward stare contests.  
  
“Can you sense aura’s? That is supposed to be a thing only the best of the best can do! There are actually only three people alive at this moment who are able to do it.” Weiss said, summing up all the stupid facts that were stored inside her head. I still had no idea why she even learned these things, but she seemed to enjoy throwing random knowledge at people, and I would be the last person to stop her from having fun.  
  
I chuckled awkwardly. Way to go Elisa, this time I couldn’t blame the chocolate spread for putting me in an awkward situation. This was all my own fault.  
  
“Ehm, yeah, it is something I picked up.” That was an horrible explanation, but I couldn’t tell them the truth. It was a too long story to tell, and it was also way too early to tell them that much about myself. Not that they knew anything about me, except for my name and my age. And what I looked like of course, but that was kinda hard to not know.  
  
Weiss and Yang kept staring at me, almost certainly not believing a single thing I had just said. You couldn’t pick up a thing like sensing aura’s, it required an immense time of effort and training, and talent. I absolutely didn’t want to brag, these are just facts.  
  
“We really have to talk about this once we find Blake. We almost know nothing about your skills, and about you.” Yang said, before resuming her pace, Weiss and I following her in silence.  
  
We searched almost throughout the whole town, but we didn’t find Blake. It was like she turned into smoke or something. We even asked in a few shops and bars, desperately trying to gather information, but no one could help us.  
  
“Thanks anyways!” Yang called out, while closing the door. I sighed. I had long lost the hope of finding Blake. We would have to wait until she came back by herself, what hopefully would be soon.  
  
“This is hopeless. You really don’t care if we find her, do you?” Yang asked Weiss. I was curious about that too, as Weiss had remained reluctant to help us find Blake, but also didn’t return to Beacon either.  
  
“Don’t be stupid, of course I do. I am just afraid of what she will say when we find her. The innocent never run Yang.”  
  
BOOOM! The sound of an explosion ringed in my ears, and far behind me I could see black smoke circling up into the sky. That couldn’t be a good sign. At that same moment my scroll started buzzing. Ruby. I picked up, immediately hearing a lot of wind. Ruby must be using her semblance to get to the place where the explosion happened in time.  
  
“Are you okay?” I yelled inside the microphone.  
  
“Yeah, I am using my semblance to try to make in time! I am guessing Blake is also there, can you make it too?” Judging by how far the black cloud was from us, I didn’t think we could. Well, I could, but that meant I had to leave Weiss and Yang behind, and that was not going to happen. We didn’t know who was behind the explosion, and there could be more bombs, or whatever caused that explosion, around here.  
  
“No! We will try, but I don’t think so!” I yelled again, not sure if Ruby would even be able to hear me with the sounds of the wind surrounding her.  
  
“Okay, I am almost there! Be safe.” Apparently she could, maybe it was her secret talent?  
  
“You too.” And with that, Ruby hang up, and we started running towards the explosion.

* * *

Like I had predicted, we didn’t make it on time. When we arrived, we saw boxes of dust from the Schnee Dust Company scattered around everywhere, and the wrecks of two planes beside it. Something had gone down here, and we weren’t there to help. I felt horrible.  
  
Ruby, Penny, the monkey Faunus from the boat and, thank God, Blake were sitting on wooden boxes, conversing. I heard Weiss taking a sharp breath beside me, and Yang and I shared worried looks. This was going to be the moment of truth. Everyone looked up as we approached them, and Ruby almost came running towards Weiss.  
  
“Look Weiss, it is not what you think she explained the whole thing, you see, she doesn’t actually wear a bow she has kitty ears and they are actually kinda cute.” Weiss ignored Ruby, and kept walking towards her target. Blake.  
  
“Weiss, I want you to know that I am no longer associated with the White Fang. Back when I was with-“ Blake started.  
  
“Stop. Do you have any idea how long we have been searching for you?” Weiss paused, giving Blake the opportunity to answer, what she didn’t.   
“Twelve hours. That means I have had twelve hours to think about this. And in that twelve hours I have decided… I don’t care!” I blinked with my eyes, extremely confused. Was this the same Weiss who had been yelling at Blake like two days ago? Did we accidently lose the real Weiss while we were running towards the explosion, had she been replaced with a good clone?  
  
“You don’t care?” Blake asked, as confused as I was.  
  
“You said you are not one of them anymore, right?”  
  
“No, I-I haven’t been since I was younger-“  
  
“Upupupup! I don’t wanna hear it! All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up, you will come to your teammates and not some… someone else.” I almost teared up because of how proud I was of Weiss. She had just completely accepted Blake, even with her upbringing and own suffering. That is what I call being a badass.  
  
Blake wiped away a tear that had started to form in her eye, then she looked at Ruby, Yang and me for a second. “Of course.”  
  
“Yeah! Team RWBYE is back together!” We all smiled, feeling relieved. It all ended well, it was all okay.  
  
Then Weiss decided to ruin the perfect moment, turning towards the monkey Faunus. “I am still not quite sure how I feel about you!” The monkey Faunus laughed nervously, and we all laughed too.  
  
It was time to go home.


	9. Chapter 9

It was our last day before the start of the second semester, and I planned to take advance of our free second I had. What meant I slept as long as possible, which wasn’t much longer than normal. Even though my teammates tried not wake me, they were just not that skilled in being silent. Once they were gone, probably to get breakfast, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. My bed slowly swayed from the right to the left, sort of resembling a hammock.  
  
Time had flown by, as we were almost already in our second semester, and so much had happened in that short period of time. I became part of a team of Huntresses-in-training, became friends with them, then Blake and Weiss had had a fight and everyone discovered that Blake is a Faunus, what caused Blake to ran away. After hours of looking for her, we (well, actually Ruby) found her, we made up and, to repeat Ruby’s words, team RWBYE was back together again. It didn’t feel like almost four months had passed, but the calendar told me to believe it.  
  
With a grunt I rose up from my bed, jumped to the floor and looked around the room for a second. It felt so empty and lonely without my teammates there. It was strange, how soon I got used to having my teammates and other friends around, that every moment spend without them felt weird. I had been on my own almost all my life, and if I had people around me, it was just because they wanted something from me, not because they liked me. My time at Beacon had changed my whole life style. I had promised myself a long time ago that I would never depend on and trust people again in my life, but here I was. I trusted my friends with my life, and I was prepared to die for them when necessary.   
  
Long ago, when I was very young and still lived with my parents, I loved reading books, especially the ones about people saving the world together with their friends. I adored the heroes and their dedication to fulfil their fate, but the thing I loved most were the bonds between the characters. I dreamed of having such friends myself one day too, people who I loved and who loved me too, people who would do anything for me, and I would do anything for them. After a few years on the streets, I cursed myself for believing my life would be so simple, for believing in my foolish dreams. I convinced myself that I didn’t need anyone, except for myself, my dreams long forgotten. However, that all changed in these four months. I had become so attached to my friends, and I had started to believe again in the dreams I once cursed and called foolish. Maybe it was not my dreams which were foolish, but me, who stopped believing in them.

Stretching my body so the stiffness would leave it, I changed into my school uniform and set course towards the dining room. Beacon was an enormous school, and I am not that famous for my navigation skills, so I got lost more than a few times in the first month. Fortunately, I soon learned how to find my way in this building which sometimes felt like a maze to me, and nowadays I could find any place I wanted to get to on the auto pilot.   
  
To get to the dining hall, I first had to walk a bit outside, then turn to the left and voila, I had reached my destination. As I walked by the windows of the dining hall, I noticed that almost no one was there, and that the cafeteria was a mess. Leaning in to have a better look, I saw Weiss and Blake laying on the ground, Yang was nowhere to be found, andRuby was using a plate as a surf board, steering towards team JNPR. What was going on here?   
  
I saw Ruby use her semblance to blast team JNPR against the wall, also bombing them with drink cans. They slowly fell off the wall, completely covered with the colourful drinks. I smiled, this was definitely a food fight, and to say I was offended that no one called me to warn me, was the understatement of the century. I would have loved kicking team JNPR’s butt in a food fight, but it seemed like they hadn’t really needed my help.   
  
The sound of heels passing by made me look up, just in time to see professor Goodwitch storm into the dining hall. As fast as possible, I also entered the dining hall, not wanting to miss the terrible scolding my team and team JNPR were about to get. Professor Goodwitch used her semblance to put everything back in place, clearly annoyed with the situation.   
  
The monkey Faunus, his name was Sun I had learned a few days ago, and a blue haired boy (one of Sun’s teammates?) were also in the dining hall, and Sun smiled at me and I smiled back. Sun was a good person. He helped Blake when she ran away from us and kept her safe, although I had the feeling he had done that also with his own motives in mind.  
  
Speaking of Blake, she and Weiss were on their feet again and had joined Ruby. Team JNPR were standing in front of them, still covered in all the colours of the rainbow thanks to Ruby. It looked good on them.   
  
“Children, please, do not play with your food.” Professor Goodwitch was pissed off, and then Yang decided it would be the perfect moment to make her even angrier. She came falling down from the sky, crashing through the ceiling and landing next to our team. She jumped up, giving everyone a quick thumbs up. Laughter echoed in the hall, but professor Goodwitch still seemed like she wanted to scold each and every one of them and then give them detention for a few weeks. Suddenly professor Ozpin was there, placing his hand on professor Goodwitch’s schoulder.   
  
“Let it go.” He said softly, but demanding.  
  
“They are supposed to be the defenders of the world.” Professor Goodwitch replied bitterly.  
  
“And they will. But right now they are still children. So why not let them play the part? After all, it is not a role they will have forever.” With that, professor Ozpin turned around and exited the hall, and professor Goodwitch soon followed him.   
  
I still had to figure out what kind of relationship these two precisely had, but that would be a problem for another day. My team had spotted me standing close to the exit, yelling my name. I rolled my eyes and joined them.  
  
“Elisa! There you are! You missed the most epic food fight in history! We won though! We won!” Ruby immediately rambled, jumping around in her joy. Weiss placed a hand on her arm, instantly calming her down. I smiled.  
  
“I saw your last move Ruby, good job! You kicked their butt.” I praised Ruby. “But what happened to you Yang? Last time I checked, it is not normal in a food fight to crash through the ceiling.” Not that I had any experiences with food fights, but I pretended like I knew what I was talking about, like I did almost 90% of the time.    
  
“Nora blew me through the ceiling, but I am okay! Daily business.” Yang laughed.  
  
“However, I am still hungry, so what about going to the city to eat breakfast together? My treat.” Weiss proposed, to which we all agreed. None of us would miss a chance to eat everything we could for free. 

* * *

Do you know the feeling of freedom you get when you have vacation? Then you also know the terrible feeling the morning of your first school day after the vacation. The crushing regret came in waves over me, why did I ever agree to this? I forced myself out of bed, starting my normal morning routine. Then I saw a notification on my scroll from the person I didn’t actually want to talk to ever again. Professor Ozpin.   
  
Professor Ozpin told me in the beginning of the year it could happen he would need me in an emergency, and he would text or call me on my scroll if he needed me. Apparently, the time had come for me to make my appearance. I sighed. I didn’t even want to follow my classes today, so meeting professor Ozpin was one of the last things I wanted to do. Well, duty called.  
  
Leaving a message on the desk for my teammates, telling them I had to meet up with professor Ozpin, and their usual cups of coffee and tea, I slowly made my way towards professor Ozpin’s office. I didn’t know what to expect, and honestly, I didn’t really care. The elevator opened with a _ping_ and the doors slowly closed behind me. I was still disappointed in the choice of elevator music, as a standard waiting music filled the small room. The elevator stopped, having reached his destination, and the doors slid open again, revealing professor Ozpin’s office with professor Goodwitch and the great professor Ozpin himself standing there, almost certainly waiting for me.   


“You actually showed up.” Professor Goodwitch said, almost sounding accusing. What did she expect? I am not one to just ignore a message, especially if it was an emergency.  
  
“So, where is the fire?” I joked, ignoring professor Goodwitch challenge. I wasn’t here to fight, if I was, it wouldn’t be here this early.   
  
Professor Ozpin took a sip out of his mug. “I want you to meet general Ironwood.” I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t really see the emergency in a meeting with a general.   
  
“And that is what you call an emergency?”  
  
He took another sip. “No. What I call an emergency, is the information we just received. I need to talk to you about something.” Before I could react, a sort of alarm sounded. Professor Ozpin walked over to his desk, pushing some buttons, and then the elevator doors opened once again. Poor elevator, he had a demanding job with a lot of ups and downs.  
  
Out of the elevator came a middle aged man, and his way of walking already told me this was the general. Even if I hadn’t recognised him by his way of walking, I would have recognised his face. General Ironwood wasn’t exactly a normal citizen, as he ran a military and an academy, so his face had been on television a few time and it also wasn’t abnormal to see articles in the newspapers about him.   
  
“Ozpin! It has been too long.” The general and professor Ozpin shook hands, although they both looked a bit stiff. I wondered how long they had known each other, and how good friends they really were.  
  
“And Glynda! It has certainly been too long since we last met.” Wait, was the general hitting on our teacher? Well, this ought to be good.  
  
“Oh James. I’ll be outside.” Professor Goodwitch sounded tired, then she walked away. I was seriously considering running after her, just so that I didn’t have to be here anymore.  
  
“Well, she hasn’t changed a bit.” General Ironwood joked. Then he spotted me standing next to Ozpin’s desk. “And who is our guest?”   
  
“This is the child I told you about, Elisa.” Wait, child? A warm hand was placed on my shoulder, and I looked at it, very confused. “I am glad you are here, we need your help.” Were all adults this mysterious or was it just a hype in Vale and Atlas?  
  
“So, what in the world has brought you all the way down from Atlas? Headmasters don’t typically travel with their students for the Vytal Festival.” The smell of coffee invaded my nose, and I watched as Ozpin filled a mug for general Ironwood and for me. Coffee wasn’t my favourite drink, but I didn’t want to be rude now, so I politely took a sip. Blegh.  
  
“Well, you know how much I love Vale this time of the year. Besides, with you hosting… I thought this might be a good opportunity for us to catch up.” Something in his voice told me he didn’t mean catching up like friends catching up, but more like generals forming strategies to win a war.  
  
“I can certainly appreciate quality time between friends, however, the small fleet outside of my window has me somewhat concerned.” Small fleet? I quickly looked outside of the window, indeed seeing there a small fleet of military ships. Did generals always have to bring their work with them wherever they went?  
  
“Well, concern is what brought them here.”  
  
“I understand travel between kingdoms has become increasingly difficult-“  
  
“Oz.” General Ironwood interrupted. “You and I both know why I brought those men.” Yes, and you two were the only ones in the room who knew, leaving me completely in the dark. Thanks a lot I guess.  
  
Ozpin sighed, and took another sip out of his mug. How much did this man drink a day? “We are in a time of peace. Shows of power like this are just going to give off the wrong impression.”  
  
“But if what Qrow said is true-“ Who was this Qrow guy? This just kept getting weirder and more confusing with each passing second. Why was I even here? To witness these two powerful man bickering like toddlers?  
  
“If what Qrow said is true, then we will handle it tactfully. It is the Vytal Festival, a time to celebrate unity and peace. So, I suggest you not scare people by transporting hundreds of soldiers halfway across the continent.” Professor Ozpin interrupted. Was Atlas really that far away? I had no idea, like I already mentioned before, my navigation skills aren’t really that great.  
  
“I am just being cautious.”   
  
“As I am I. Which is way we will continue to train the best Hunters and Huntresses we can.”  
  
“Believe me, I am.” Ironwoods voice took a bit of a dark turn, then he also turned and started walking away. “But ask yourself this… Do you honestly believe your children can win a war?”   
  
Professor Ozpin didn’t reply, and the general stepped inside the elevator, out of our sights once again. “I hope they never have to.”   
  
The office was silent, and not the good kind of silent, but the extremely awkward kind of silent. “So, why am I here again?” Professor Ozpin looked up. “Ah yes, I have to discuss something with you, something of great importance. I need you to go on a personal mission for me. I need more information.”

* * *

“Happy birthday to me.” I quietly sang to myself, blowing out the one small candle on top of my muffin. I was all alone in my apartment. It was my first birthday without any of my friends around, and it was terrible.   
  
It felt wrong, it felt extremely wrong to not wake up to a bunch of messages from my friends, wishing me a happy birthday in all sorts of creative ways. It felt extremely wrong to not hear my friends singing happy birthday to me, bringing in the cake they had desperately tried to hide from me, failing miserably. It felt extremely wrong to not hear Yang’s puns, Blake’s sarcastic remarks, Ruby’s happy shouts and Weiss’ scolding. It felt extremely wrong to not hear Sun’s laugh, not hear Neptune defending his intelligence, to not hear Nora and Ren bickering about whatever impossible thing Nora wanted to do that time, to not hear Jaune cursing because he ruined yet another thing.   
  
My heart ached at the thought of my friends. Before I met all of them, I had the same problem Weiss had had for a long time. My heart had turned to stone, not letting anyone in, turning me into an emotionless robot. I told myself I didn’t want anything in my life I could lose, which included of course people. Yet they just forced their way into my heart, causing me to open up and transform into the person I am today, and for that I was still grateful.  
  
My hand touched the red hood hanging around my shoulders, taking in the feeling of the soft fabric caressing my fingers, then I touched the black ribbon wrapped around my left arm, the ribbon that was nowadays known as the symbol for equality. I touched the white pin which held up my hair, the death of Weiss changing my hair style forever. Finally, I touched my most recent outfit addition. Yang’s orange scarf.   
  
Yang had been the last one of my friends to leave me, making her death the most painful one, as I had spent most of my time with her. We pulled each other through the sadness of losing the ones we loved more than life itself, and because of that our bond strengthen even more.   
  
I closed my eyes for a moment, imagining the warm feeling of the aura’s of my friends. For a moment, it actually felt like they were in the room with me, but the feeling disappeared when I opened my eyes again. Tears started dripping down my face, covering the floor with tiny wet drops.   
I was pathetic. It had been almost a year since Yang died, and much longer since my other friends had passed away, and still with everything I did I wished they were here. Sometimes I even got injured, completely expecting one of my teammates to have my back. Sometimes I would fall on my knees crying, just because I found something that once was from one of my teammates. And on the days I missed them even more than normal, I would go the graveyard where all of my friends were buried, and bring them flowers and talk with them.   
  
With every breath I took, I longed for them. But I had to keep going, for myself and for them. Cause that is just how life is. Things end, people leave. But life goes on, and you can’t afford to fall behind on the pace of life. That is not what my friends would have wanted. I sighed. I would better get used to the silence surrounding me, cause this was all I had left from now on.   
  
People always told me silence was one of the worst things in life, but I never understood them. I always liked silence, a quiet moment for myself to think. However, as I sat there in my apartment, and heard silence instead of all the voices of my friends, I understood.


	10. Chapter 10

“Noooo, my fearless soldiers!”   
  
It couldn’t be a good thing that that was the first thing I heard when I stepped inside the library. Were Yang and Ruby playing that stupid board game again? They always got way too competitive when they played, so I already banned them from playing it in our room. The last time they did, they made a complete mess and made Weiss mad, one of the worst things you can do. I sighed, but still walked further inside the library. I wasn’t scared of a stupid board game, I could even overcome a furious Weiss.   
  
Beacon’s library was enormous. First, you had tables and computers, on which you could work and surf on the internet (only meant to do research, but that didn’t mean we didn’t play any games on it). Right and left of the computers were the bookshelves, stuffed with books and digital source material. Between the bookshelves also were a few tables, placed there so that you could grab a book and read it over there. Ideal for lazy students.   
  
The library wasn’t that crowded, what made sense since most students probably had lessons now. Only first students always had this hour free, and most of them didn’t spend their time in the library. A shame if you ask me, had they seen all the books they have here? It was a paradise for a book nerd like me.  
  
Some figures flew towards my face, and I could only dodge them thanks to my battle field reflexes (good reflexes, thank you for not letting my face be damaged). They were definitely doing what I thought they were doing.   
  
The goal in that cursed game was to conquer all the four kingdoms and achieve world domination. Sounds like a nice and peaceful game, right? I hated it, and not only because Weiss would get mad. I just- I just didn’t like it.  
  
“I hate this game of emotions we play!” Wait, was that Weiss’ voice? Was she actually playing the game together with them? What a traitor, I thought I could trust you Weiss.   
  
I walked around the bookshelf, finding my team seated at a table with that horrible board game in front of them. Behind them were the members of team JNPR, all reading except for Nora of course. I didn’t even understand why she always joined us in the library, the only thing she did was sleeping and screaming about pancakes. Did any of my friends understand libraries were places where you had to keep your mouth shut, read or work and not play board games?  
  
“Stay strong Weiss, we will make it through this together.” Ruby launched herself at Weiss lap. She was a brave soul, not even I would try to cuddle Weiss. I would like not to die at 15 years old, that was a bit young, don’t you think?  
  
“Shut up, don’t touch me!” Weiss yelled, while she put her arms around Ruby, bringing her even closer to herself.  It was not fair, only Ruby would get out of this kind of situations without being scolded. If it was me or Yang or Blake who just did that, we would have been dead meat, believe me.   
  
Stepping forward, my team and team JNPR noticed me. Team JNPR waved at me, and Yang immediately stood up to get me a chair. “Thank you”, I said as I sat down. Ahh, these chairs were a lot more comfortable than those in professor Ozpin’s office. Although it could also be the atmosphere in Ozpin’s office that made me uncomfortable.   
  
“Sorry Elisa, you can’t play, we already have four players.” Ruby apologised, while she climbed off of Weiss’ lap and returned to her chair. I didn’t really mind, I preferred watching them play. No, I have to correct myself. I preferred watching them reading and studying for their upcoming test, and not playing this cursed game. Well, you can’t have everything you want in life.   
  
“Alright Blake, you are up!” Yang sang out. So, she thought her win was already guaranteed. Maybe I could give Blake some tips, helping her finally crush Yang’s arrogance and almost limitless confidence once and for all.   
  
“Huh! Oh uhm.. Sorry, what am I doing?” Ugh okay, Blake was a lost cause. She had even watched Ruby and Yang play this game about a dozen times already, how could she not know how to play? Even I knew how this game worked, and I never had an intention of learning the rules.  
  
“You are playing as Vale, trying to conquer the kingdoms of Remnant!” Yang leaned forward towards Blake while explaining, her mouth curved into a smile and her eyes twinkling like they always did whenever Blake was around.   
  
“Right.” Blake’s voice sounded unsure and a bit distant. She looked at her cards, her fingers hoovering above one of her cards. I glanced at the cards in her hand, then at the card she wanted to use, and internally sighed.   
  
Blake had no idea what she was doing.   
  
Bye plans of crushing Yang. It had been nice to feel that small spark of hope again, even if it had only lasted for a few seconds.   
  
“Hey! Can I play?” Jaune suddenly interrupted, earning himself a few irritated looks, especially from Weiss. She had never been really fond of Jaune, and the fact that he kept trying to ask her out didn’t really help. I had to give him credits for not giving up, but it was also important to know when to quit.   
  
“Sorry Jaune, we already have got four people.” Ruby answered.   
  
“Besides, this game requires a certain level of tactical cunning that I seriously doubt you possess.” Savage Ice Queen followed up. I know you don’t like Jaune Weiss, but do you have to be that mean all the time to him?  
  
“Uh, you attacked your own navel fleet two turns ago.” Yang interrupted, almost causing me to laugh. Just in time I acted like I had to cough. Mission avoid-making-Weiss-mad had been successful ,for now at least.   
  
´Bring it on Ice Queen! I will have you know I have been told I am a natural leader!” Jaune boasted.   
  
“By who? Your mother?” Ohh, that was a pretty good roast Weiss, my respect.  
  
“And Pyrrha!” Pyrrha turned our way when she heard her name. “Hello again!”, she said with a smile.   
  
“Come one, let me play your hand for a turn!” Jaune begged Weiss, his hands clasped together in front of him, like he was an homeless man begging for food. Well, then you chose the wrong person Jauney-boy. Begging or even using your puppy eyes were not going to help when you were talking to the Ice Queen.   
  
“I am not trusting you with the good citizens of Vacuo!” Weiss, honey, you already have murdered around half of the whole population of Vacuo. I don’t think you are in the position to judge.  
  
“Why not? You have trusted me with way more important stuff before! I mean, you told us all that Blake is secretly a Fau-“  
  
“Fun-loving person whom we all admire and respect!” Pyrrha interrupted just in time, covering Jaune’s mouth to keep him from spilling any other secrets. He laughed awkwardly, his hand reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “Right, that.”   
  
“Ladies, enjoy your battle.” Jaune said, bowing to us.  
  
“Sup losers?” Who was- Oh, it was Sun. Of course, since the incident with Blake a few weeks ago, he had almost been permanently at her side. At least, tried to be. Blake wasn’t that interested, I think, as she kept ignoring him most of the time.  
  
“Hey Sun!” Ruby greeted happily.  
  
“Ruby, Yang, Elisa, Blake, Ice Queen…” Weiss made an annoyed sound. “Why does everyone keep calling me that?!” I don’t know princess, maybe because of your cold personality? But don’t worry Weiss, I know you are secretly a good and nice person, beneath all the layers of ice you created around your heart.   
  
‘I never got a chance to introduce you to my old friend.” Sun continued, pointing at the blue haired boy beside him. Ah yes, the poor boy who got sort of involved in the food fight, getting covered with all sorts of food in the process. He wasn’t really excited about it.   
  
“Uhh, aren’t libraries for reading?” Blue haired boy asked hesitantly. Ren yelled a thank you, waking Nora who had been asleep the whole time. “Pancakes!”, she exclaimed, looking with big and expecting eyes at Ren.   
  
“Shut up. Don’t be a nerd.” Sun answered.   
  
“Intellectual, okay? Thank you.” Blue haired boy defended himself. I had a strange feeling this was how 90% of their conversations went. He turned towards us. “I am Neptune.” That was a fitting name for someone with blue hair, I approved.

“So Neptune, where are you from?” Weiss spoke up again.   
  
“Haven…” Neptune replied, walking towards Weiss, leaning on the table with one hand. “And I don’t believe I have caught your name, snow angel.” Uhm Neptune, I don’t think Weiss will appreciate even more nicknames. She hates the ones she already has with a burning passion, and I don’t think yours will be an exception.   
  
“Um.. I am Weiss.” What?! This was so not fair, why could everyone get away with things for which Weiss would slowly and painfully murder me?!   
  
“Pleasure to meet you.” Neptune said, flashing a million dollars smile at Weiss. Meanwhile, Sun had approached Blake, leaning towards her. Don’t do it Sun, Blake isn’t in her best mood today, you will only upset her even more. I tried to warn him, shaking my head vigorously at him, but he didn’t understand. Oh no.   
  
“I never took you as the board-game-playing type!” Why did you never listen to me, Sun?   
  
“Right. Well, I think I am done playing actually.” Blake stood up and Sun moved out of her way as fast as he could. No one wanted to get in the way of a moody Blake. “I will see you guys later.” She said, clearly directed at us, her team, then walked away, leaving behind a very confused Sun. I tried to warn you brother, this was all on you.   
  
My eyes met Yang’s. “ _Should I go after her?”,_ she asked me. _“No, just let her be for a while. You know how she is when she is upset.”_ Yang nodded, and with that our silent conversation was over. When Blake was upset, she liked to be alone, so it was best to let her be for a while. The last thing we wanted was to upset her even more.   
  
My guess was that Blake was still thinking about what happened at the shipyard. After we were finally reunited again and returned to Beacon, she was almost immediately called to Ozpin’s office. We had been scared, terrified that Blake might be expelled, but fortunately that had not been the case. She didn’t want to tell us what they had exactly talked about, only telling us that he wanted to know what happened that night. However, we all knew that was not the only thing they had talked about.   
  
Yang or I could easily get the information we wanted out of her, but we didn’t want to. We didn’t want her to feel like she was forced to tell us anything, so we waited. However, the path Blake was now beginning to take wasn’t a good one, and if she continued to act this way… We would have to talk to her, if we wanted to or not.   
  
It was our duty to protect our teammates, and I was determined to fulfil that duty.

* * *

“Ugh! We should have never let him play!” Yang raged. Neptune had joined the game, in the place of Blake, and well, my dream had finally come true. Yang had been crushed by him, and she wasn’t happy with it.  
  
“You are just mad cause the new guy beat you.” Ruby teased. “See, if you had just attacked when I told you, none of this would have happened.”   
  
Blake stood up from her bed, and tried to sneak away while she thought we were not paying attention to her. Sorry Blake, but we had our eye on you. “Stop.” Weiss ordered, freezing Blake on spot, her hand hoovering above the door clink. “Lately you have been quiet, anti-social and moody.”   
  
“Uhm, have you met Blake?” Yang remarked.  
  
“Which I get, Is kind of your thing.”, Weiss continued. “But you have been doing it more than usual, which quite frankly, is unacceptable. You made a promise to me, to all of us, that you would us know if something was wrong. So Blake Belladonna! What! Is! Wrong!”  
  
Suddenly Weiss was balancing on a chair, pointing at Blake, probably trying to be intimidating. I thought it was admirable that she was able to balance that well on a chair, but intimidating? Not really, sorry Weiss. As fast as she had gotten on the chair, she got off and placed it back. Returning to her previous spot, we all looked at Blake expectantly, waiting for an answer.  
  
“I just… I don’t understand how everyone can be so calm.” Blake said, with a sigh.   
  
“You are still thinking about Torchwick.” Ruby said sympathetically.   
  
“Torchwick, the White Fang, all of it! Something big is happening and no one is doing anything about it!” Yang and I shared a look, our suspicions confirmed.   
  
“Ozpin told us not to worry. Between the police and the Huntsmen, I am sure they can handle it.” Yang replied.  
  
“Well I am not! They don’t know the White Fang like I do.” Blake exclaimed. “And it is not like we can really trust Ozpin.” I added. A silence fell, in which we were all thinking the same thing. We had to do something, we had to fix this.  
  
“Okay, between blowing up night clubs, stopping thieves and fighting for freedom and survival, I am sure the four of you think you are all ready to go out and apprehend these ne’er-do-well.” Weiss said. “But let me once again be the voice of reason. We are students, we are not ready to handle this sort of situation.”

“Well, yeah, but-“ Ruby began. “We are not ready!” Weiss interrupted, finally losing her temper. Great, that meant one of my few missions of today had failed, thanks Ruby.  
  
“And we may never be ready! Our enemies aren’t just going to sit around and wait for graduation day! They are out there, somewhere, planning their next move and none of us know what it is, but it is coming! Whether we are ready or not.” She was right. We didn’t know what their next move was exactly going to be, although I had a pretty good idea what their end goal was. But that didn’t matter right now. I would tell them when they needed the information, and that was not now.  
  
“Okay! All in favour of becoming the youngest Huntresses to single-handedly bring down a corrupt organisation conspiring against the kingdom of Vale… Say aye!” Ruby said, holding her hand up in the air to make clear that she was in.   
  
“Yes! I love it when you are feisty!” Yang said, that last bit directed at Blake, earning herself a smile. So, Yang was in too.  
  
“Well, I suppose it could be fun.” Weiss agreed.   
  
Now they were watching me, and I just shrugged. “I will go wherever you four go. You will need someone to keep you out of danger, so I am in I guess.”   
  
“None of you said aye…” Ruby whispered, clearly disappointed.   
  
‘Alright then, we are in this together.” Blake said with a smile. Yes, my other mission of today had succeeded, Blake was happy again.   
  
“Let’s hatch a plan!” Ruby called out. “Yeah!”, Yang pumped her fist up in the air, probably excited because she knew she was going to kick some butt. She loved kicking butt almost as much as she loved that stupid bike of hers, maybe even more.   
  
“Ahh!” Ruby suddenly yelled, looking terrified. What was going on, where was the fire, the intruders?!  
  
“I left my board game in the library.” Of course it was that cursed board game again. “We are doomed.”, Weiss said, saying exactly what I had been thinking.   
  
Ruby sprinted away, desperate to save her loved board game. “I will be right back!”, she yelled, and almost immediately after that we heard a loud _thump_. She probably crashed into something or someone. We were used to it, so none of us walked outside to check her. Instead, we started planning our first big operation. Mission bring-down-the-corrupt-criminals has begun!

* * *

This will be the day we have been waiting for, the day we would finally officially start our mission. I didn’t really like violence and hurting people, but bringing down an evil organisation? Gosh, I was excited. Of course I didn’t show my excitement to my teammates, otherwise I would have been teased to the death by them. I had a reputation to uphold, so I kept myself calm, quietly waiting for the end of our school day.   
  
The universe hated us, so our last lesson was from professor Port. He was telling us another story, as usual, and I swear, that hour felt like forever. By the time I thought I would die because of boredom, the bell rang. Weiss had been approached by Jaune again, and judging by the desperate looks she sent me, she didn’t appreciate his company. He was definitely trying to ask her out again. Weiss stood up when the bell rang. “No, no, no, yes.” She told him in an annoyed voice, then stormed off.  
  
“Argh.”, Jaune let his head fall on the desk, clearly out of ideas how to make Weiss like him. “One day.” Yang said as we walked by, patting him softly on the head.   
  
If I had to give Jaune advice, I would tell him to stop with the endless pick-up lines and creative ways to ask Weiss out, and just tell her how he felt. When you genuinely like someone, you have to be brave and tell them. You can flirt with them all you want, but the only way to really get their attention, in a romantical way, is to be straightforward.   
  
However, classes were over, so now it was time to shine. We almost ran back to our dorm, everyone just as excited as I was. The halls were crowded. Most of the students were probably looking for a place to study or were returning to their room, like us. While bumping into people and sometimes even pushing them away, we made our way towards our room.   
  
As fast as we could, we changed into our battle outfits. However, these outfits were not our normal outfits, it were our super special mission outfits! Although I say it myself, we looked pretty badass.   
  
Weiss and Ruby each wore their loved dresses… I mean combat skirts and both wore booths. Weiss was of course dressed in white and Ruby in red and grey.   
Blake wore a white jacket and a pair of black pants and boots, with her trademark ribbons wrapped around her arms. Yang wore black and white pants with her symbol on it and a white/black/brown jacket, of course not fully zipped up.   
  
I myself was clothed fully in black, the colour of my soul. Honestly, I looked a bit like a mix of a spy, an assassin and a ninja; I wore a black tank top with a black jacket, black pants and of course black boots. My jacket had my symbol on the back of it.   
  
My symbol was to be honest just the symbol of Remnant, the same one the Vytal Festival Tournament used. I never felt the need to have my own special symbol, it made me feel like an arrogant brat (no offence to people who do have their own symbol). By using the symbol of Remnant I wanted to show I was only interested in protecting my world and the people who lived there, and not in fame and money.  
  
I checked the scabbard on my back, making sure my sword couldn’t fall out. Check, I was ready.   
  
It was showtime.


	11. Chapter 11

“Right, everyone remember their roles?” Ruby asked. Ruby, really? We had been waiting for this moment for what felt like ages. I had repeated the plan in my head for over a million times, of course I remembered.  
  
“You and I will head to the CCT and check the Schnee records for any other Dust robberies or inconsistencies.” Weiss answered. “Seeing as I am in the family, it shouldn’t be a problem.” She continued. Weiss, you boaster. We already know you are rich, you don’t have to be mean about it.  
  
“The White Fang has regular faction meetings to hand out orders and recruit new members.” Blake explained. “If I can get in, I can hopefully find out what they are planning.” Mm, I was a bit worried about Blake. She had by far the most dangerous role of us all, as she would infiltrate one of the meetings of our enemy, on her own. I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t come with her, but I would stand out way too much. I was a human, after all, they would kill me on the spot.  
  
“I have an old friend on the shady side of town that typically knows everything going on in Vale. Getting information out of him shouldn’t be too hard, especially because I have Elisa with me! And she is pretty scary.” Geez, thanks Yang. I glared at her, but she only laughed. Puh, I would show her scary.  
  
“Great, we will meet up tonight near Yang to go over what we have found. Let’s do this!” Ruby exclaimed.  
  
“Yeah!” A muffled voice suddenly was heard from outside. Before our window was Sun, hanging onto his tail. Of course he was here, ugh. “Sun!” Blake shouted, clearly shocked to find him there. Same Blake, same.  
  
“How did you get up there?” Yang asked, her voice filled with uncertainty and a hint of admiration.  
  
“Ah it is easy, I do it all the time!” Wait, what?   
  
“You do what?!” Weiss exclaimed, apparently also not too pleased with the idea of Sun- I didn’t even want to finish that thought, it was just too horrible.   
  
“I climb trees all the time!” Sun explained. Weiss narrowed her eyes, not fully believing his words.  
  
“So, are we finally getting back on that Torchwick guy?” Sun asked while he jumped into our room.  
Yes, we were. No, you weren’t. That sounded harsh, I know, but I really didn’t like it when people showed up uninvited, and expected me to just be fine with it.  
  
“We are going to investigate the situation.” Blake said, with an emphasis on ‘we’. “As a team.” Yeah Sun, this was a super secret _team_ mission, so only team members allowed.  
  
“Sorry Sun, we don’t want to get friends involved if we don’t have to.” Ruby continued, trying to decrease the intensity of Blake’s words.   
  
“Pff, that is dumb. You should always get friends involved. That is why I brought Neptune.” Sun countered, pointing to somewhere outside. Wait, that other dude came with him? O my god, why were we even friends with this guy? And speaking of Neptune, where was he?   
  
We all looked outside the window in the direction Sun had pointed, finding Neptune there, standing on the small fillet between the wall and the open sky beside our room window. “Sup.” He greeted, looking a bit nervous, his eyes flickering between us and the ground far below him.   
  
“How did you even get up here?” Ruby asked amused. “I have my ways.” Neptune answered, trying to sound cool and mysterious. “Seriously though, can I come in? We are like, really high up right now.” Super bad boy right here, totally not scared and totally not almost begging us to let him in.   
  
Of course, the good people we were, we let him in.  
  
“All right, I will go with Weiss. Sun, you can go with Blake. And Neptune, you can go with Yang and Elisa.” Ruby practically pushed Neptune our way, and he stood completely frozen besides us. I believed he might was a bit scared of us. That was good, he should be.   
  
“Actually Ruby, why don’t you go with Yang, ha. After all, she is your sister.” Weiss spoke up. If you wanted me to believe that was the reason you wanted to switch partners, princess, you should work on your lying skills. That argument was just pathetic.  
  
“But Weiss, who would go with you then?” Ruby asked, the poor girl utterly confused.   
  
“Well, I guess Neptune could come with me.” Neptune flashed his million dollar smile at her, probably relieved he wouldn’t have to come with Yang and I. Ruby just laughed, like Weiss had just told a really bad joke (she does, please don’t tell her I said that, she will kill me). “Nah.”   
  
“But! But!” Weiss stammered, clearly not done with this discussion. Ruby, however, thought the conversation was over and pulled Weiss away from us and out of the room, probably headed towards the CCT tower.   
  
Blake and Sun said their goodbyes, and also left. I was happy someone was going with Blake, it made me feel a lot calmer. If something bad would happen, Blake would have some back up. Although I was not sure Sun could be counted as back up, as I had never seen him fight. Well, I would give him a chance to prove himself.  
  
Yang cleared her throat. “We do have one problem folks. I only have space for one extra person on my bike, so one of you will have to walk.” She said that last part as a joke, but I decided to take it serious.   
  
“Neptune, you can go with Yang. I will run over there.” I answered while I started doing some warm-up exercises. Yang raised her eyebrows at me, doubting my words. “You are going to run over there?” I looked at her, trying my best to look as innocent as possible. Puppy eyes mode activated.  
  
“Yeah? It is not that far, right?” Neptune had moved away from us. He most certainly were covering himself in case Yang and I would get in a fight over this. Haha, as if.   
  
“No it isn’t, but still. I know you are fast, but you know I don’t like to wait.” Yang answered. I paused, acting like I was thinking about my response. “You won’t have to wait, I promise.” Yang raised her eyebrows again.  
  
“Was that a challenge?” Yang’s voice sounded dangerous, as if she tried to scare me out of this race.  
   
“Maybe.” I answered, successfully ‘upsetting’ Yang, who immediately started moving. She pushed Neptune out of the door while pulling out the keys of her bike out of her pocket. She looked over her shoulder, at me, and winked. “See you in about an hour Elisa.” I just smiled and winked back. 

* * *

Mmm, they were later than I had expected them to be. It had already been almost 2 minutes. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I stood in front of the nightclub Yang had told me her old friend was. I had an idea who this ‘friend’ of hers could be.  
  
Junior.   
  
He was famous on the streets, as he sometimes would visit us and recruit new bodyguards.   
  
His club was popular, especially by the more shady people in Vale. This was the place where the small criminals gathered together, made deals and got drunk together. From outside the club didn’t look like much, just a building in the outskirts of Vale, without even a proper sign. I had never been inside, mostly because I rarely had had contact with other people when I had been living on the streets. It had seemed to dangerous to me, especially considering my past…  
  
Of course Junior and his men had tried to convince me to join their little gang, because who wouldn’t want to have me in their gang, am I right? However, I hadn’t been very interested and refused every time. Maybe that was why they didn’t seem to like me very much.  
  
Finally I heard motorcycle sounds, and the next second Yang drove around the corner, the colours of her bike standing out in our somewhat grey surroundings. She parked in front of me, and slowly took her helmet off so that she wouldn’t damage her hair in some way, while trying to hide the fact that she was surprised I had been here earlier than she and Neptune.   
  
“You didn’t make me wait. Good job.” Yang said, attempting to not sound amazed.  
  
I laughed in response. “I wouldn’t even dream of making you wait, my queen.” Yang laughed too, and together we walked inside the nightclub. Neptune was still on the motorcycle, apparently shocked by Yang’s driving style (she is horrible, especially when it is your first time driving with her). Poor boy, I feel your pain.   
  
Muffled screams could be heard coming from inside the club and together with the doors suddenly closing, the message was clear: you aren’t welcome here. I shared an amused look with Yang. “After you, my queen.” In response, Yang fired one of her rounds at the door, instantly breaking it open, throwing the two guys guarding it on their feet.  
  
She walked in first, not even bothering to help the two guys up, and I followed right behind her. Straight away everyone pulled their guns out, pointing them at Yang. She just stared at them, silently challenging them to fire. Her lilac eyes seemed like they were dancing, the lights of the club reflecting in them. It made her look like a typical party girl, who had come here to get drunk and maybe even pick up a nice guy. Nothing was less true.   
  
I moved my fingers a tiny bit, placing a shield made of my aura around Yang. Now, even if they fired, the bullets would be reflected by my shield, and hit them instead. Surprise!  
  
“Yeah, so could you define ‘friend’ for me?” Neptune asked. So he decided to finally join the party too. Amazing.  
  
“Stop! Stop! Nobody shoot.” The great Junior himself pushed his way to the front, earning himself some dirty looks in the process. His men didn’t act like they really liked him, what was probably true. It was likely they had only accepted this job to get off the streets, and to try to build a whole new life for themselves.   
  
Junior straightened his tie, then faced Yang and me directly. To be honest, he looked a bit nervous, throwing quick glances at Yang, as if he was afraid she would attack him any minute.   
  
“Blondie! You are here. Why?” Hey, I was here too jerk! And Neptune of course, but he didn’t have a real purpose here (sorry bro).  
  
“You still owe me a drink.” Yang responded, grabbing Junior by his arm and leading him to the bar. Junior gasped, not looking happy with these developments. His men just watched him go, not caring about what would happen to their boss. I quietly followed them, also not taking any initiative to stop Yang’s behaviour.  
  
We had decided that Yang would do the negotiation, and I would just be there if something went wrong. How did Ruby phrase it again? Oh yeah! “Yang will talk with her friend, and Elisa will be there for the intimidation factor. And if something goes wrong, you are allowed to break all of their bones.” The corner of my mouth quirked up. I loved it when I had permission to break bones.   
  
Junior slammed his glass on the table, holding his head up with his left hand. It was a big club, with lights flashing everywhere and loud music playing. The main colours seemed to be black, grey and red, and the main purpose was clear: Getting people as drunk as possible so that they would spend as much money as possible. And if they were lucky, they would even sign themselves up to do some dirty work for them. I already hated it here.  
  
“I don’t know!” He exclaimed.  
  
“How can you not know?” Yang asked in a demanding voice, crossing her arms. Ruby had said I would be the intimidating factor, but Yang was doing a good job too.   
  
“I haven’t talked to him. I haven’t even seen him since the night you first came in here. He paid upfront, I lent him my men, and none of them ever came back.” Junior stood up, leaning in towards Yang. I stepped forward, glaring at him with my ‘killer gaze’, warning him to not pull a stunt or he would regret it. He instantly backed away a little bit and I grinned, internally celebrating my small victory.  
  
“So, where did they go?” Of course Neptune suddenly showed up again. Where had that dude been? And why did he think he could just interfere with our negotiation?   
  
“What kind of stupid question is that? They never came back!” Junior answered with a frustrated growl. “Who is this guy?”  
  
“Don’t worry about him.” Yang replied, slapping her hand in Neptune’s face. “Worry about me if I don’t find out what I want!”  
  
“I already told you everything! Torchwick hired my boys and I guess he wasn’t happy with them! Which is something I can relate to!” Well, what do you expect when you pick most of them up on the streets? All the things you learn on the streets are related to your survival. Most of us don’t have any real skills, which is one of the reasons why we are living on the streets you know.   
  
“C’mon Elisa.” Yang turned around, urging me to follow her.  
  
“We got enough?” I asked, already knowing the answer.  
  
“Well, we got everything we can. Hopefully the rest of the team is having better luck.”   
  
“I have a feeling luck doesn’t really like us.” I responded sarcastically. Yang smiled, giving me a knowing look and I looked back with the same intensity. Then I rolled my eyes and smiled back.  
  
Yang and I had had this sort of rivalry for a few weeks now. Sarcastic remarks, getting each other stuff we knew the other didn’t like, meaningless contests etc, most of the time just to get on each other’s nerves.   
  
Don’t get me wrong, Yang and I got along great and we loved each other a big deal. I guess this was our own way of showing affection.  
  
We walked out of the night club, and I still felt the hateful looks burning on my back. I didn’t know what exactly Yang had done here the first time she came in, but it hadn’t made her famous in a good way. Knowing her, she probably had destroyed the place and everyone who had dared to stand in her way.   
  
The warmth outside hit me again, urging me to take my jacket off. Yang whistled teasingly at me. I rolled my eyes while tying my jacket around my waist.   
  
_Buzz buzz buzz._ Yang grabbed her scroll, which she had put in one of the pockets of her jacket. A little smile formed on her face, then she picked up. I knew almost for sure it was Blake who was calling, as she was the only one Yang would smile at like that.   
  
Blake and Yang had been extremely close ever since the beginning of school, and some people (me included) suspected they had romantic feelings for each other. Some even believed they already were a couple. Of that I wasn’t so sure, but it couldn’t take much longer, judging by the way they acted around each other.   
  
“Everyone! If you can hear me, we need back-“ Blake was interrupted by Sun, who was yelling and screaming. “They got a robot, and it is big, really big!” Sun sounded desperate and tired, as if he had been running around for a few hours. Yang and I shared a look. We had to help them.   
  
I glanced at Yang’s scroll, and seeing what I already thought. Blake had created a group call, so hopefully Weiss and Ruby were also alerted and on their way to help.   
  
“Where are you guys?” Yang asked in a loud voice, trying to make herself audible over the loud background noises. Sun yelled again, but now it sounded much and much closer. I could also hear loud footsteps, probably from the robot. Weird, we couldn’t hear-  
  
As if we had planned it, all three of us turned around at the same moment, and we all saw Blake and Sun running away from an enormous robot in the street behind us. “I think that was them-“ Neptune started, interrupted by Yang who had already started the engine of her bike.   
  
“Yeah, I got it. Elisa, will you be okay?” I nodded, and Yang immediately turned her bike around and raced away, chasing the big not so friendly robot. I waited a few seconds, taking my time to determine where they were probably heading, then I also set off. 

* * *

Our plan was simple. Blake and Yang would chase the robot together with Sun and Neptune, and Weiss would make the robot fall of the highway with some help of her ice dust. Ruby and I would be waiting at the spot the robot would crash into, keeping him busy until the others would join us. Then we would finish him off with our skills and amazing team attacks.  
  
“I am in position!” I heard Weiss yell and I took my sword out of my scabbard. The runes on it were glowing softly in response to my aura running through it.

My sword was a special item that I had gotten a long time ago from a world renowned black smith. It had a black heft and a golden blade, with white and red runes drawn upon it. It was light, but not too light, as I also had to be able to overpower an enemy.   
  
The runes allowed me to use my aura to let the sword change forms, and it could become any weapon I wanted. However, I preferred its sword form. Simple, but deadly.  
  
The sound of cars speeding by was all of a sudden interrupted by the sound of ice forming. There was only one explanation for ice forming with this temperature. Our Ice Queen was busy with her loved dust. The next moment the enormous robot I had seen earlier, crashed down before us. Ruby gripped her scythe a bit tighter, ready to attack. The rest of team RWBYE landed beside us. We were all ready.  
  
A soft laugh could be heard from deep within the robot, then it started moving forward, in our direction. Ruby immediately reacted. “Freezerburn!”   
  
Everyone except for Weiss and Yang jumped out of the way. Then Weiss created, once again, an area of ice around her, and Yang fired one of her bullets at it, effectively creating a sort of smokescreen. It was one of the first moves we came up with, as we all agreed it was extremely important to have an attack which blinded our enemy, and would give us the opportunity to use sneak attacks.   
  
We used the little time we had created to divide ourselves, surrounding the robot.   
  
Some laser lights passed by me and the next second bullets were flying nearby my face. So this thing also had some tricks up his sleeve. The shield I had placed around Yang took a hit, probably from one of this weird electrical bullets, and I flinched a bit.   
  
It felt like I myself had been hit by that bullet, and my aura had to restore itself. I quickly fixed the hole in the shield and was just in time to see Ruby launching herself at the robot, successfully landing a hit on it.   
  
“Checkmate!”   
  
Blake and Weiss ran forward, landing beside Ruby and immediately attacking the robot’s legs. They landed a few hits, but didn’t do any real damage. Weiss quickly send them both backwards with her glyphs, trying to get them both back in our ‘safe zone’, but getting hit herself in the process. She flew past us, landing hard on the ground at a small distance from us. I flinched again as another shield of mine took damage.   
  
Then the robot revealed another trick: small missiles. It fired a few dozen of them , each one closely following up the next one.   
  
“I got this!” I yelled, bringing my sword in position. I could easily slay them out of the air, I just had to use my aura to power up my slashes. Closing my eyes for a millisecond, I concentrated, pulling my aura out of my body and extending it towards my weapon. It almost resonated with power now, ready to take down these stupid missiles.  
  
I didn’t open my eyes again, but instead trusted on my skills to sense where the missiles were. Wait, I told myself. They just had to come a little bit closer… Just a little bit more….   
  
Yes, this was it. I opened my eyes, and immediately moved my sword. My aura charged slashes teared through the air, rainbow coloured aura attacks rapidly decreasing the distance between me and the missiles, successfully tearing the missiles down from the sky. Turning my back towards the explosion, I walked away, like a complete badass.   
  
I ran to where Weiss laid on the ground, still recovering from the hit she took from the robot. I had to protect her while she couldn’t protect herself. Taking a combat stance, I kept a close eye on what was happening, also putting up a few more shields around Weiss and I.   
  
Meanwhile, Blake and Ruby were using their Ladybug attack and Yang decided it was finally time to join the battle again. She jumped, soaring in the sky for a moment, then she landed on the robot and fired a few of her bullets on it.   
  
“Take that you stupid piece of metal!”  
  
In an attempt to get rid of her, the robot moved forward at an extremely fast pace, throwing her against a heavy pillar. Ouch, that didn’t look good. Yang fell to the ground, and I heard Blake screaming her name. I looked back at Weiss, who seemed okay and quickly recovering. She could protect herself for a while.   
  
I had to help my other teammates, so I rushed back to their side again. Yang had stood up again, her hair flaring and eyes coloured a blood red. Her semblance was activated, time to run little robot. It tried to land a big right overhand punch at Yang, but Yang easily stopped it, looking up at it dangerously.   
  
Whenever I saw Yang like this, I felt really relieved she was on our side. Nothing would make me feel more terrified than the sight of an angry Yang, hair almost burning, eyes blazing and powered up with the power of what could be compared to the power of an army.   
  
Yang punched the robot, destroying the only arm it had still left. The robot stood still for a moment, as if it was actually grieving the loss of its arm, then kicked Yang to the other side of our fighting space.   
  
“Bumblebee!” Ruby yelled, and Blake instantly threw her weapon at Yang, who caught it while still flying in the air. Blake grunted because of the effort and I could almost feel the burning pain in my arm muscles myself, but she managed to pull Yang forward, directed at the robot. The robot however, was way too fast, and Yang flew past it, not able to land a single hit on it.   
  
“We have to slow it down!” Ruby yelled again.  
  
“And how do you propose we do that?” Weiss had finally joined us again, and of course immediately treated us with a sarcastic remark.   
  
Ruby however, ignored her. Her brain was working at its absolute best; gears turning, dots getting connected, and a plan was slowly forming in our leader’s head.  
  
“Elisa, distract the robot. Weiss, Ice Flower!” Ruby ordered.  
  
While Weiss and Ruby were preparing their attack, I sprinted towards the robot again. The muscles in my legs were quietly protesting, but I told them to shut up. I reached out with my aura to my sword, getting an immediate reaction that made the hairs on my arm stand up and my skin tingle in anticipation.  
  
_Focus Elisa, imagine that your sword is changing, and you are now wielding a big weapon, like an axe or something. Yes, an axe would be great._  
  
My sword changed forms, and now I was holding a huge morning star. I hated the slow movements of the weapon, but it was ideal to inflict damage an enormous opponent like this robot.   
  
I swung my axe at the leg of the robot. It managed to dodge my attack with a jump, but as it was still in the air, it wouldn’t be able to doge my next strike. I focused on my aura once again, this time to create a huge arrow. It manifested just above the robot, and I let it fly down towards the robot.   
  
The machine wasn’t even in time to turn around, and the arrow hit at the exact place I wanted to hit. The robot stumbled, almost falling over, but it didn’t get any rest.  
  
Ruby and Weiss fired off their ice bullets, hitting the robot head on, placing small ice crystals along its whole body. In the meantime, Blake was swinging Yang at the robot again, and I quickly leaped out of the way.   
  
Blake and Yang’s attack completely destroyed the robot, and Torchwick rolled out of it. He recovered quickly, brushing dust of his shoulders and mumbling something. Yang, impatient as always, fired another round at him.   
  
It disclosed the distance at a high speed, but before it could hit its target, a girl jumped in front of Torchwick, blocking the bullet with her… umbrella? Really, they just made everything their weapon these days. I bet it was a gun too.  
  
We gathered together once again, standing in a fighting pose, waiting for Torchwick and the girl with him to make their move. I felt sick, my head feeling like I had taken a few hits of a hammer. My vision began to blur, giving me trouble concentrating. I was even struggling to keep standing, my legs were weak, leaving me swaying on my feet and feeling like a complete idiot.  
  
“Ladies. Ice Queen. Always a pleasure.” Torchwick greeted us. “Neo, if you would.” The girl, whose name was apparently Neo, bowed to us. Something flickered for a second, and I blinked in confusion. It looked like she had just activated her semblance, but they were still standing still. Wait a second, their aura’s were moving away from us. I turned towards my team, wanting to warn them that our enemy was escaping.  
  
Yang suddenly leaped forward, throwing a left punch at the duo, but only shattering the illusion Neo had created. That was her semblance, huh, a dangerous and incredibly annoying one.   
  
Confused, Yang scanned her surroundings, trying to locate Torchwick and his companion again. The sounds of an engine sounded far above us, and the next moment we saw our targets escaping in an airship, quickly leaving us behind. The cowards. If you started a fight, you also had to finish it.   
  
“So I guess he got a new henchman.” Yang said. Her eyes were purple again, but still had that cold look in them. It would take some time for Yang to calm down and completely be herself again.  
  
Mm, she was one of his henchman, yes, but new? Their aura’s had told me they had been together for some time now, their bond was deep and strong, and they had obviously been through a lot of things together.   
  
“Yeah, I guess she really made our plans.. fall apart?” Weiss joked, well, tried to joke. She glanced at Yang, as if she was looking for her approval, but Yang only sighed.   
  
“No. Just no.”   
  
“What! But you do it!” Weiss snarked back, clearly hurt by Yang’s disapproval. I don’t know if it makes you feel better Weiss, but I heard Ruby laughing. But well, Ruby laughed at almost everything, so that didn’t really mean anything.  
  
“There is a time and place for jokes.” Yang responded.  
  
“Was this not it?” Weiss asked, still offended.  
  
“No, it just wasn’t very good.” With that Yang walked away, leaving a mildly offended Weiss behind.  
  
“Well, at least I am trying.” Weiss said, in a sad attempt to save her face. Sorry princess, but that wasn’t going to save you now. Knowing Yang, once she was calmed down, she would never let Weiss live this down, grabbing every chance of teasing her with her failed attempt at trying to be funny.  
  
“Wait, where are Sun and Neptune?” Ruby asked. Did she really just notice they were gone?   
  
I turned around, following Blake, Weiss and Yang. My muscles and head hurt and I felt dizzy. I struggled to breath, and it felt like something was blocking my windpipe. I coughed, in an attempt to get rid of the thing that was keeping me from breathing.  
  
Blood.  
  
It had been a long time since I had used my aura this frequently, and it was starting to get a toll on me. Well, the blockade was gone now, so I could finally breath normal again. That was worth a little celebration, I thought, while inhaling the maximum amount of air my longs could hold.  
  
I had to be careful, careful not to use too much of my power. I couldn’t afford to lose control, or it would have catastrophic results. No, I couldn’t let that happen again. I would train my ass off, until I would have complete control of my power. It was only getting harder with each day passing, our enemies growing in number and in power, and I would need all the power I could muster. I shouldn’t be afraid anymore, it was my power, right?!  
  
I had never had real motivation to learn how to control my power. It wasn’t important to me, as I had nothing I would gladly lose my life for defending. Training was forced on me, and in general I was treated like a weapon they could use to win a war, not as a person. But now, it was different, I thought, while looking at my teammates. Now, I had a home I had to protect and people I would gladly lose my life for.   
  
I had something worth fighting for.


	12. Chapter 12

After all the exciting stuff that happened yesterday, I had fallen asleep almost immediately the moment my head touched my pillow. Everyone seemed tired, judging by their sleepy eyes and constant yawning. I didn’t look a lot better, as I still had a bad headache and coughed up blood sometimes during our classes. My teammates send me a lot of worried glances, but none of them dared to ask me how I was doing or what was going on. It was better that way. I didn’t want to explain why this all was happening to me.   
  
We helped each other survive each school day, waking one another up if they had fallen asleep during the lessons, helping each other out with homework and making sure everyone got their cups of coffee and tea at the moments they needed it the most.   
  
Thank the gods, we soon reached Friday, and so almost the weekend. We had all deserved the two days off, as everyone was exhausted. However, Blake needed it most of all.   
  
She had slept about five hours this whole week, returning to our dorm early in the morning and leaving an hour later, resuming her desperate search. Her sleep deprivation was clearly shown by the bags under her eyes, and her moody and anti-social behaviour. I get that is kind of her thing, but it had become even worse with each day passing.   
  
She was way too focused on finding Torchwick, spending every free minute she had in the library, without any breaks searching for information.   
  
We were worried sick, all of us trying to convince her to get some rest, but none of us was able to get through to her. It was like she had been transformed into a robot, only focused on accomplishing her goal, not caring about anything else.  
  
I looked up from my textbook as the bell rang loudly (I was sure this bell was going to kill my ears soon). Professor Port dismissed us, sadly informing us he would have to finish his breath-taking story after the weekend, and we all started packing up. Then I remembered what our next lesson was.  
  
Oh no.  
  
Our last lesson was… combat training.

Today was the day I was supposed to finally have my first practice match. My body was already on the brink of exhaustion thanks to all the extra training we had done this week, my mind was unfocused, constantly dwelling off to random thoughts like ‘ducks will be the next world dominators’, and other super intelligent stuff. In short,  I felt everything but ready.     
  
However, I was apparently not the only one who had remembered.   
  
Ruby was jumping around me, babbling way too fast for me to follow, probably giving me all sorts of tips on how to win my match. My mind on the other side could only focus on the image of a new duck emperor, granting me no chance of listening to my leader.  
  
I sighed. I hadn’t been that lucky either when it came to my opponent.   
  
“Hey guys!” Jaune and his team approached us from behind, all of them also still in their school uniforms. They had probably waited around for us, so that we could get ready for combat class together. Our friends were the best.  
  
Nora sprinted towards me. “It is your turn today, I am soooo excited! I have never seen you fight before, but you must be good, otherwise you would have never been accepted into Beacon heh! But Pyrrha is still going to kick your ass!” She finished with a confident smile.   
  
Pyrrha smiled at me, silently apologising for Nora’s behaviour, and in response I playfully winked at her. Pyrrha was like the mom of team JNPR, always making sure they didn’t get into any trouble, and if they did, she was the one who would force them to apologize and fix everything they destroyed.   
  
And when you had a Jaune and a Nora on your team, you would have to be an excellent mom, otherwise the school would be burned to the ground within a few hours.  
  
“Let’s go get changed into our combat clothes. We don’t want to make professor Goodwitch mad at us by being late.” Ruby said.  
  
Everyone mumbled their agreements, and we set off towards the changing rooms, splitting into a group of woman and a group of men, which only consisted of Jaune and Ren. Poor boys.  
  
I kicked my shoes off, seeing them fly off to the other side of the room, earning myself an annoyed look from Weiss. While taking my shirt off, I opened my locker and pulled my combat clothes and weapon out. Yes, I know, I am a great multitasker. It is one of my many talents, along with opening jars and almost breaking my neck each time I wanted to go to the toilet.  
  
My combat clothes consisted of a small cobalt blue top over a silver with gold accents breastplate, black pants held up by a brown belt and, to finish my look, black boots. A long time ago I had gotten it from the same blacksmith I had gotten my sword from, but I had never used it until I now.   
  
It fitted me perfectly, making me look like a true huntress-in-training. Or, as Ruby loved to call me, a badass princess or queen. While putting my sword away in its destined spot at my belt, I turned around, facing the others.

“You ready?” Yang asked.

“I was born ready. The question is, Pyrrha, are you ready?” The corners of my mouth quirked up, and my eyes twinkled mischievously.  
  
Pyrrha smiled back. “Let’s make it a good match, shall we?” We quickly hugged each other, whispering our good lucks.  
  
Now it was time to each make our entrance into the arena in which we would fight. Pyrrha and Nora had already left, leaving me and my team behind. In order to calm my nerves, I inhaled deeply, then glanced behind me. My team smiled at me, even Blake, and Yang was giving me a thumbs up.   
  
“Will you be okay? Pyrrha is pretty… skilled.” Ruby asked hesitantly. Not answering, I only patted her head.  
  
One last deep breath.   
  
My body was ready, my senses sharp and muscles alert. My mind was focused, no more thinking about ducks taking over the world, only focus on the fight in front of me.   
  
I was ready. With that last thought I left the locker room, making my way to the arena.  
  
“The question is if _she_ is going to be okay.” I mumbled, knowing none of them would be able to hear me.

* * *

Pyrrha’s shield came flying towards me, and I deflected it with my sword, then charged forward. I had to use the few seconds Pyrrha didn’t have her shield to attack and try to knock her out.   
  
She was almost entirely protected by her armour, but everything had its weak points. I spun around her, finally getting the chance to examine her armour. Bingo, her back was almost completely exposed. Pyrrha quickly turned around, strategically moving her weak point away from me.  
  
I faked an attack at her chest, then jumped over her and attacked her back. At that exact moment her shield returned, knocking me back. Pyrrha turned around again and charged. I shifted my weight, and ducked under her sword, air moving above me.   
  
Now I had one problem: I couldn’t see Pyrrha’s movements anymore. In order to prevent her hitting me head on, I was forced to turn my back on her, blocking my own sight in the process.  
  
I concentrated, hearing Pyrrha’s sword slashing through the air at my right, and blocked it just in time. Pyrrha kept attacking me, trying to create an opening in my defence. Mmph, good luck with that.   
  
Calling upon my aura, I summoned five little arrows, and fired them at Pyrrha. The only way I could have a chance of winning right now was if I could successfully distract Pyrrha. She pulled back and dodged the arrows. Now it was my turn to attack, forcing her more and more backwards with each blow.   
  
_Kill her  
  
_ I hesitated, and Pyrrha immediately took the chance to escape, pulling back a few meters, at a safe distance from my sword. Cursing internally, I tried to catch my breath again. We had been duelling for a long time already, and I started to get tired.   
  
The aura meter in front of me told me Pyrrha had a little less than half of her aura left. I just had to land two good blows, then I could rest up. Let’s do this.  
  
Pyrrha started moving again, transforming her sword in its spear form. Great, now she had an even bigger attack range. She shot a few bullets at me, obviously attempting to get my aura low enough so that she could knock me out with one good hit. Sorry sweetheart, but that wasn’t going to work.  
  
The bullets hit my armour, falling to the ground without having done any damage. Pyrrha’s spear came into my eye sight again, slashing at my arm. My aura took the hit for me, and I saw my aura lowering a little bit.   
  
My arm was feeling numb and I had trouble moving it, but I would have to. With only one hand I wasn’t going to win this fight.   
  
Pyrrha slashed her spear at me, and I spun to dodge it, also gaining momentum. Using that momentum, I kicked Pyrrha in the stomach. I immediately followed up with a punch in the face, using my free left arm, then kicked her legs under her away. Pyrrha fell on the ground, losing her weapon in the process.   
  
_KILL HER  
  
_ My heartbeat was speeding up and I started to lose focus. Pyrrha was still on the ground, discreetly trying to reach her weapon, but I kicked it away from her. My eye fell on her hair. Red hair.   
  
Red, the colour of blood.   
  
Blood.   
  
_She is your enemy  
  
_ Yes, she was my enemy. I had to kill her, before she could do any harm to my friends. I had to protect them, I had to kill-  
   
_NO!  
  
_ I regained my focus, but the floor seemed to sway away from under me. Keep standing, I told myself. You can do this, you can resist.   
  
Pyrrha gulped when I placed my sword close to her throat. I had pinned her limbs to the ground with my aura, so the only thing she could do was angrily stare at me. Checkmate.  
  
A beep could be heard, and professor Goodwitch walked in our direction.   
  
“And that is the match. Good job you two. You both should have no problem qualifying for the tournament.”   
  
I helped Pyrrha up and handed her her weapon. “Well done Pyrrha. We should do that more often.” I smiled at her, and she smiled back.  
  
“Thanks Elisa. Where did you learn how to fight like that? I didn’t even put a scratch on you!” Pyrrha said, and pointed at the aura meter just right from us. The aura meter showed us the amount of hits we had taken, and how much of our aura was gone. I awkwardly chuckled, cringing internally.  
  
“I guess living on the streets gave me a sort of aura boost.” I explained. Pyrrha nodded understandingly.   
  
My teammates, except for Blake who seemed lost in one of her books like always, were cheering for me. A warm and cozy feeling engulfed me, like I had just fallen into a room filled with soft pillows. It felt amazing to have people who celebrated your victories like they were their own.  
  
My footsteps sounded loudly in the open space of the arena as I walked away, returning to the spectators bench above the fighting space. Pyrrha hesitated, not moving an inch.   
  
“Alright, now I know that is a tough act to follow, but we have time for one more sparring match.” Professor Goodwitch began, her eyes scanning all of my classmates. “Any volunteers?”   
  
Of course, everyone immediately stood up from their chairs, shooting their hands as high up in the sky as they could and asked, no _begged,_ professor Goodwitch to please let them compete in that last sparring match of today. And of course, I am kidding.   
  
Professor Goodwitch gaze rested on Blake, who was still reading her book, not paying attention at all.   
  
“Miss Belladonna?” Blake slammed her book shut, looking as if she had just been caught while trying to steal all of our tuna, _again._  
  
“You have been rather docile for the past few classes. Why don’t you-“   
  
“I will do it.” The boy in grey behind Blake suddenly spoke up.   
  
Ah right, this was one of the exchange students from… Haven I think? I didn’t know for sure, I didn’t really pay attention to all the students coming in from the other kingdoms. There were so many, so I had decided to don’t even try to remember their names. Don’t blame me, I am not interested in my brain exploding because of an information overload.  
  
“Mercury is it?” Professor Goodwitch paused, waiting for an answer that never came. See, not even the teachers were sure what every student was called. “Very well, let’s find you an opponent.”   
  
“Actually, I wanna fight… her.” Mercury pointed at Pyrrha, who was still standing in the arena. She took a step backwards, clearly shocked by his statement.  
  
“Me?!”   
  
“I am afraid miss Nikos has just finished a match. I would recommend you choose another partner.”   
  
“No! It is fine.” Pyrrha interrupted, turning towards Mercury. “I would be happy to oblige.” Good old Pyrrha, never wanting to disappoint anyone.   
  
Why was this dude so set on fighting Pyrrha? No one here actually wanted to cross swords with Pyrrha, as no one wanted to get their ass kicked. Mercury however seemed extremely eager to fight  Pyrrha. Something was off with his behaviour, but I couldn’t tell what exactly. This all just felt… bad. I almost could see the thunderclouds forming above the arena, screaming that something was going on here, and not something good.   
  
A warm hand was placed on my shoulder, pulling me out of my thoughts. Yang’s bright lilac eyes examined me quickly, probably making sure I wasn’t injured. “You were amazing Elisa! I wish I could kick Pyrrha’s butt like that.”   
  
I forced a smile. “Thank you Yang.” She smiled back at me, holding my gaze for a few seconds. Her eyes were filled with curiosity, and something else… worry? Why was she-  
  
Of course, Blake.   
  
Yang was worried about Blake, which was completely understandable. We were all worried, like I had already mentioned earlier. She distanced herself from us more and more with each day passing, and none of us knew for sure what was going on.  
  
I nodded, and Yang flashed a smile at me in return. We both returned our attention to the fight in front of us. I shuffled backwards, letting my legs dangle over the edge of the bench.   
  
Mercury and Pyrrha were circling each other, studying the others movements, waiting for an opening to attack. Personally, I thought the beginning of a match was the hardest part of the whole thing. You had to chose the perfect moment to charge in, otherwise you would have a disadvantage from the start.   
  
Mercury set off, charging at Pyrrha. He turned around at the last moment, changing his position and now attacking with a right high kick. Pyrrha reacted, purely working on instinct right now, and slashed at his legs.   
  
Mercury fell on the ground with a groan, but quickly recovered. He jumped out of Pyrrha’s reach, keeping his original distance again. They stood still for a second, observing one another, then Pyrrha attacked.   
  
They exchanged some slashed and kicks, but none of them managing to break through their opponents defence. Pyrrha pushed Mercury back with her shield, creating a short break for herself to catch her breath, and quickly think of a new strategy.  
  
Mercury stopped himself from crashing into the wall behind him, just in time to block Pyrrha’s attack, aimed at his chest. He blocked her sword with ease, then kicked it out of her hand. The sword landed a few meters away from Pyrrha. She would never be able to reach it without giving Mercury the opportunity to knock her out. Only one choice had been left.  
  
He smiled, clearly pleased with himself. If he thought disarming Pyrrha meant a guaranteed victory, he was even more stupid I had thought.  
  
Pyrrha had one huge advantage over Mercury: her semblance. She could manipulate metal objects, and guess what material Mercury’s boots were made of?   
  
Bingo, metal.   
  
She guided the kick he had aimed at her away from her, throwing Mercury off balance in the process, then picked up her sword again. Sprinting towards her opponent, she held her shield in front of her like a battering-ram. Mercury jumped, landing on her shield, and fired off bullets from his boots, successfully launching himself to the other side of the arena. Pyrrha immediately followed him, preparing herself to end the match with one good blow.  
  
“I forfeit.”   
  
Pyrrha gasped, coming to an abrupt halt just before Mercury. She lowered her weapons, turning towards Mercury in shock.  
  
“You don’t even want to try?” Pyrrha asked, her brows knitted in confusion.  
  
“What is the point? You are a world renowned fighter, we are obviously leagues apart.” Mercury shrugged.   
  
“In that case, Pyrrha Nikos is the victor of the match.” Professor Goodwitch declared. “Next time you may want to think a little harder before choosing an opponent.” That last part was clearly directed at Mercury.  
  
“I will be sure to do that.” He answered. Emerald called his name, urging him to hurry up. He rolled his eyes in response, but did as she told him to.  
  
The loud sound of the bell startled Blake, who shot up in surprise, but quickly sunk down again. She looked terrible, thanks to her sleep deprivation, eyes red and half closed, indicating she could collapse any second.   
  
We had to stop this process of self destruction she was slowly losing herself more and more in.   
  
“Remember the dance is this weekend, but you all have your first mission on Monday.” Ah right, the dance. I had totally forgotten about it. I had been a little bit busy with lessons, extra team training and worrying about one of my precious teammates. Not that I actually wanted to go, but since my team was going, I couldn’t stay home.  
  
“I will not accept any excuses!” Professor Goodwitch said, glancing somewhat angrily at Blake for a moment.  
  
We moved outside the arena with Ruby in front, happily bouncing around. I walked beside Weiss, who was chatting my ears off about some new type of Dust that was recently created. It sounded very interesting, and I tried my best to keep my attention at the conversation, but it was impossible. My mind kept pondering about how we were going to convince Blake to take some rest, even for just one day.   
  
“Hey Blake! You, uh, doing okay?” Great, why did Sun always have such a bad timing?  
  
Blake shut her book, definitely annoyed because of the interruption. “I am fine.”   
  
Sun cleared his throat, his tail swinging nervously behind him. “So, I heard there is a dance going on this weekend.” Oh god, he was not going to do what I thought he was going to do, right?  
  
“Ah, sounds pretty lame, but you and me, I am thinking, not so lame, huh?” That guy was a complete idiot, I rest my case.  
  
“What?”   
  
“The dance, this weekend, you wanna go or what?”   
  
Blake abruptly turned her back at him. “I don’t have time for a stupid dance. I thought you of all people would get that.” She stomped away, leaving a very confused and sad Sun behind. I patted his shoulder, trying my best to comfort him, then continued my walk to our dorm.  
  
It was time to have a serious talk with Blake.

* * *

“That is ridiculous!” Blake snapped at Ruby.   
  
I had no idea what time it already was, but what I did know for sure was that we had been talking for a long time. Blake was as stubborn as always, simply refusing to listen to us.   
  
“Blake, we are worried about you. This investigation is starting to mess with your head.” Yang said with a soft voice, placing her hand on Blake’s shoulder. I saw Blake slightly leaning into the touch. Blake was a sucker for warmth, probably one of the side effects of being part cat, and I will never stop being amazed at Ozpin’s skill of matching partners.   
  
“You can’t sleep, you hardly eat, and to be honest, your grades have been suffering.” Weiss summed up, but not even she was able to keep the worry out of her voice.   
  
She was right, they both were. This thing with the White Fang and Torchwick was starting to drive Blake insane. Now she was standing on the cliff’s edge, staring down into the dark abyss, with us behind her, shouting and begging her to take a step back.  
  
“You think I care about grades? People’s lives are at stake!” Blake had shrugged Yang’s hand off, wildly gesturing with her hands. Yang pushed her arm down again, staring deep into her eyes.  
  
“We know, and we are all still trying to figure out what Torchwick is up to.”   
  
“Thanks to you and Sun, we know they are operating somewhere out of Southeast Vale.” Ruby added. “And the Schnee company records singled out Vale as the primary target for Dust robberies over the past months.” Weiss finished.   
  
“We have found out a lot, Blake. Just take it easy, we are going to fix all of this and put all the bad guys behind bars.” I finally spoke up. Blake sighed. This wasn’t at all what she wanted to hear, and I knew it.   
  
“However.” I resumed. “Your behaviour the last few days isn’t helping at all. To be honest, you are more working towards your own downfall than theirs.”   
  
“We haven’t done enough! There are still so many unanswered questions.”   
  
“Blake, you won’t be able to find anything if you can’t even keep your eyes open. Elisa is right, if you keep going like this, it will destroy you.” Ruby said.  
  
“And we won’t let you do that. All we are asking is that you take it easy for _one day._ ” Yang continued. Blake curled her hands, clawing at her own skin, small little blood drops popping up as a result.  
  
“It will be fun! Yang and I will make sure of it.” Weiss promised.  
  
“What?” Blake spat out, apparently not aware of Weiss’ and Yang’s newly acquired positions. They had only been talking about it none stop, nothing special, don’t worry.  
  
“Team CFVY’s away mission lasted longer than expected.” Weiss explained. “So Weiss and I were asked to pick up where they left off. And now we can make sure you have the perfect night.” Yang concluded in an excited voice.   
  
“So, what do you think?” Ruby asked, all of us directing our eyes at Blake. The latter closed her eyes, and sighed once again. She opened her eyes again, but kept her gaze fixed on the floor, refusing to look any of us in the eye.   
  
“I think this is a colossal waste of time.” Blake stood up from her bed, still not daring to lift her eyes from the ground. “I will be in the library.” And she was gone.  
  
“She can’t keep going like this.” Weiss said.   
  
My gaze wandered across the room, resting on random objects, but never too long. I understood how Blake felt. She took all of this stuff so personally, mostly because she thought it was her responsibility to take out the White Fang, but it wasn’t. She had to learn that she couldn’t do everything on her own. She had to learn to sit some things out, learn that she couldn’t fix every problem she discovered in life.   
  
Not that I was such a great example.  
  
A knock at our door made all of us focus on the door, waiting for someone to open it. Could it be Blake? Maybe she had forgotten something? No, she had a key. Then who was it?  
  
Weiss approached the door, slowly opening it, revealing a wild Jaune with a dangerous looking guitar. Oh god, please tell me he wasn’t going to sing.  
  
“Weeeeeeiiisss.” Jaune sang while passionately playing on his guitar. He didn’t actually sound half bad, but to say it was a good idea to go serenade Weiss? Nah.  
  
She threw the door shut in his face, leaving him standing there in the hallway. Ouch, that must have hurt the little pride he still had.  
  
Knocking.  
  
“Oh, come on.” Jaune pleaded.  
  
Knocking again.  
  
“Open the door.”   
  
Silence. Weiss facepalmed, clearly not happy at all with the situation she was in.  
  
“I promise not to sing.”  
  
 She sighed and dramatically rolled her eyes, then opened the door once again.   
  
“I liieeeeed.” Jaune happily sang out. “Weiss Schnee, will you accompany me, to the dance on…. Sunday?” Did he just almost forget at what day the dance is? That is what I call good preparation.   
  
“Are you done?” Weiss demanded.   
  
“Yessss?” Jaune answered uncertain. Wrong answer bro, now you just won one of the biggest prices of the rejection lottery: another door in your face. Congratulations.   
  
“And that is why they call you the Ice Queen.” Yang teased.  
  
“All my life, boys have only cared about the perks of my last name. Besides, I already have a date in my mind.” Please tell me it wasn’t Neptune, please tell me it wasn’t Neptune, please tell me- Ah man, who was I kidding, this team was doomed with a bad taste in boys.  
  
“Date or no date, it won’t matter if we can’t get Blake to go.” Ruby said, sounding defeated.   
  
“I know.” I whispered.   
  
Blake had taken the next step despite our efforts, starting to fall into the abyss. It was now the question, would we be able to reach her in time to stop her from hitting the ground?


	13. Chapter 13

“I need you two to pick a tablecloth.” Weiss approached Ruby and I. We were sitting in the ballroom, Ruby silently moping and I being there to give her and the party planners support.   
  
Weiss placed two samples in front of us, both grey and almost exactly the same colour. Personally, I didn’t like any of them, but I believed in Weiss’ party planner skills. Ugh the dance was already tomorrow, and I didn’t had had enough time to mentally prepare myself for it.   
  
Yang and Weiss had forced me and Ruby to go with them to search for a dress, which resulted in Weiss and Ruby bickering about the need to wear proper clothes for the dance, and me and Yang quietly slipping away to actually buy a dress.   
  
My dress was okay, but just as Ruby I absolutely hated wearing dresses and heels. They were uncomfortable, exposed way too much skin and killed my feet. Plus, you couldn’t fight in them (for real, how did Weiss manage to do that).  
  
Ruby’s eyes flickered between the two samples, clearly confused. “Um, aren’t they both the same?” She asked hesitantly, knowing Weiss wouldn’t be happy with her answer.  
  
“Ugh, I don’t even know why I asked!” Weiss’ eyes fell on me. “And you Elisa?”   
  
To be clear, I don’t have any knowledge about colours, clothes and other party things, so to ask me a question like this was useless. I had no idea what I was talking about.  
  
“The right one.” I tried to make my voice sound confident, as if it was totally obvious that the right one was the best. It also sounded a bit cryptic, as I could mean two different things: the right one, in the actual right one, or the right one in the sense of the best one. I am such a genius.   
  
“Thank you! Fortunately, there is still hope for this world.” Weiss stamped away after sending Ruby a judging look. The latter only sighed, letting her head fall on the table.   
  
She was having a hard time now that Blake was reluctant to go to the dance with us. She felt like it was her fault, that she, as our leader, had the duty to fix all of this, completely forgetting she wasn’t the only one responsible for looking out for Blake. We all were.  
  
 “So, have you picked out a dress yet?” Yang joined us after slamming one of the enormous music boxes down to the ground, causing me to almost fall off my chair. Thank you Yang.  
  
“What is the point? Who cares about the dance if Blake is not going?” Ruby answered, her dramatic mode activated.   
  
“Oh don’t worry, she is going.” Yang assured us with a weird confidence. How was she so sure she could convince Blake to go? I knew that they had a very strong bond, but even all of us together hadn’t been able to make her go. Blake had sunken way too deep into her own world, and now even we couldn’t reach her.   
  
Well, if anyone would be able to get through Blake’s thick skull, it would be Yang. I just had to put some faith in Yang.   
  
Yang and Blake’s relationship was by far the most outstanding within our team. The two of them couldn’t have more different personalities, and some people even dared to say that they resembled gasoline and fire.    
  
To be honest, their friendship was a little bit like that, but not in the negative way people liked to portray it, just because they were jealous.   
  
It could be better described as the mutual dependency of each other. Of course, the gasoline and fire were still usable and had their effects on their own, but combined, they just _exploded_. They lifted each other’s good qualities up, and burned all their insecurities and fears down.   
  
It had now become strange to not see these two together, and whenever you invited one of them somewhere, the other would also magically appear somehow (not that I minded, I love both of them dearly, don’t get me wrong).  
  
 At times when we would have a movie night together, they almost immediately found each other, cuddling close at the couch (I can’t say I didn’t envy Blake, Yang was an amazing space heater), making us question even more if they actually were a couple or not.  
  
 And, even though they thought no one knew, I was aware of the fact than whenever we had a cold night, Blake slept in Yang’s bed, probably because ‘she was way too cold to be able to sleep’, and Yang didn’t mind to share some of her warmth.   
  
Ruby and Weiss had also deepened their friendship; their bickering had transformed from a hostile tone to a more friendly one, and I even saw them hugging at least once a day (that was probably because Ruby was just such a puppy that always needed attention, but Weiss didn’t seem too bothered with it, and was maybe even secretly enjoying it).   
  
They were finally learning how to respect and trust each other, and it did me good to see all of my teammates getting along so great with their respective partners.   
  
“You ladies all excited for dress up?” Amazing, Sun had finally recovered from Blake’s heartless rejection and decided to bother us instead. Great, really great.  
  
“Pfft, yeah right.” Ruby scoffed, still in dramatic mode. Did that kid have a power-off button? If so, please show me it. Not that I wanted to use it, just for… research. Scientific and incredibly important research.  
  
“Laugh all you want, sis. I will be turning heads tomorrow night.” Yang responded.   
  
To others it might have sounded like she was bragging, but she was actually telling the truth. I had seen Yang in her dress already, and I can tell you she will have to bring some pepper spray tomorrow night to keep all the love struck people off of her. I would be happy to help her kick everyone off her, I love kicking people who bother my friends.   
  
“What are you two wearing?” Weiss asked.  
  
“Uhh, this?” Sun answered, and as a reaction Neptune immediately put his hand on his mouth. “Ignore him, for he knows not what he says.” Well, it was clear who had the most fashion sense of the two (hint, it wasn’t Sun).   
  
Sun slapped Neptune’s hand away. “Hey, I may have moved to Mistral, but I grew up in Vacuo. It is not exactly a shirt-and-tie kinda place.” He pointed at his uncovered chest, as if we hadn’t noticed that by now.    
  
“Yeah, we have noticed.” Yang remarked, while sporting a disapproving look.   
  
“So, uh, what does Blake think of all this? She is still being all, ya know…. Blake-y?” Wrong question Sun, wrong question.   
  
“Obviously.” Weiss answered, putting up her arrogant and cold mask, acting like she wasn’t worried about Blake’s wellbeing. “I just can’t think of a way to change her mind.” Ruby continued, then sighed.   
  
“Guys, trust me. Blake will be at the dance tomorrow.” Yang still hadn’t lost that weird confidence from earlier, and I was inclined to believe what she said. Yang had never disappointed me after all.  
  
Well, there was actually that one time when she totally forgot that we would study together in the library, and instead took a nap, leaving me there waiting for her for over an hour (I thought she was just late, don’t blame me for having hope), all alone like a lost puppy. I am still recovering from that one.  
  
With that, Yang walked out of the ball room, almost certainly headed towards the library, where Blake was hiding, as usual. Sun and Neptune gave us some unbelieving looks, then shrugged and headed off too.   
  
I was more than a little curious how the talk between Blake and Yang would go.

* * *

“Urgh.” I groaned while I dropped the last fog machine on the ground, next to one of the music boxes in the far right corner. It had to be out of sight, so that the fog would surprise all the party guests, hopefully in a positive way.   
  
I didn’t really want to spend my evening at a hospital just because someone had a heart attack because of our hidden fog machines.   
  
Now that Yang was gone, Weiss had appointed me to be the one to carry all the heavy stuff, and I soon discovered how easy it was to break your back while trying to move a box of doilies (those stupid things don’t look that heavy, but when put together in a box they are pure evil).  
  
“Are we done?” Ruby asked in a pleading voice.   
  
We had been busy setting everything up for almost the whole day by now, and she was getting tired of waiting for us to finish. Maybe if she had just helped out, considering the fact that she was the one with the speed semblance, we would have been done way earlier, huh Ruby? Just an idea.   
  
“Mmmh.” Weiss looked around, scanning every inch of the ballroom for any inconsistencies or things that needed to be fixed. Please, let me go, please please please. “Yes, I believe it all looks acceptable.”

 _Acceptable?_  
  
Was that all I was getting for all the work I put into this? Blood, sweat and tears apparently weren’t enough for our Princess. Maybe I would have to cut off a limb too, maybe then she would finally be satisfied with the amount of sacrifices I have made for this dance.   
  
Ruby however shot up from her chair, punching her arm high into the air. “Finally! Let’s go back to our dorm!” She speeded away, leaving us with only a trail of red petals to follow.   
  
Weiss sighed. “Doesn’t she get that this room has to stay perfect until tomorrow night?” She startled at the touch of my hand on her shoulder, giving me a questioning look. “Let it be, it looks fantastic Weiss.”   
  
A small smile decorated Weiss’ face, and she nodded. “You are right, of course.” A moment of silence fell between us as we set off towards our dorm, but not an uncomfortable one.   
  
Weiss and I were used to this kind of silence, and we treasured it. We didn’t feel the need to talk all the time, only using up air on useless words, and silence could be considered a world wonder when you lived together with four other girls. Especially when two of those girls were Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose.   
  
Ruby was already laying on her bed, waiting impatiently for us to also enter the room. “You are both so slow, it is super annoying!”   
  
Weiss rolled her eyes, taking place at the chair on the side of the work desk. “Not all of us have a speed semblance, Ruby.” I nodded in agreement.  
  
Ruby wined, pulling a puppy face. “I know that! But you could use your glyphs and Elisa can also be superfast if she wants to!”  
  
“The key words there are ‘if she wants to’.” I answered sarcastically, earning myself an angry look from Ruby. That is what you get for letting me do all the hard work Rubes.  My muscles were screaming for revenge, and you know I can’t say no to them.  
  
Weiss started humming to herself while going through the information we got on the mission we were going on tomorrow. We were supposed to shadow a professional huntsman selected by the school, and help him with his ‘daily work’, as the school didn’t trust us first years enough to don’t die if we would go on our first mission without any guidance.   
  
I still couldn’t believe we were really going on our first mission together. It already felt like I had been with these girls for years, and every time I realised the opposite was true, I was utterly confused.   
  
When I told my teammates about my confusion, they all admitted they had the exact same ‘problem’. We had stared at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds, each one of us trying to figure out how this could be.   
  
“Past lives, huh?”, Yang had said, and we had all laughed. However, a little voice in the back of mind whispered to me this could actually be a very good explanation for the weird familiarity we were all feeling. Well, we would never know for sure, would we?  
  
“I hope Yang will be able to convince Blake to go to the dance. She needs a break, otherwise she will just collapse on our mission.” Ruby suddenly spoke up. She was laying on her back on her bed, staring at the ceiling as if all the answers to our problems were written on there.   
  
To be honest, I had never taken a good look at the ceiling, so I couldn’t know for sure. Maybe I had to inspect that stupid thing above my head more often.   
  
“I can always give her some sort of Aura boost. But I believe she will be fine. Yang and Blake are really close, and I trust Yang to punch some sense into her.” I answered.   
  
“Not literally I hope.” Weiss added, earning herself an annoyed look from me. I had been practicing these for the past few days, and I must say they were almost perfect now. And no, I am not just bragging.  
  
Ruby sat up, looking at me with her big silver puppy eyes. I hated them, because I could never say no when she asked me something. “I just realised I never asked you what your semblance is, Elisa. I never exactly know if it is your astonishing Aura control or your semblance which allows you to pull some of your moves.”   
  
My throat went dry, and my fingers automatically started fumbling with the soft material of my shirt in an attempt to calm down my nerves. Of course I had expected this question sooner or later, and came up with a sufficient answer, but I could still feel a weird from of tension in my body that always played up whenever I had to lie.   
  
“You are actually always right then, Ruby. My semblance is the ability to have perfect Aura control, which is why I can use it to create shield or small arrows for example.” My voice sounded steady and convincing, at least to myself.   
  
Ruby gasped, and only for a moment my heart stopped beating, terrified for the upcoming reaction. “That is super duper cool! So you have literally that much control over you Aura that you can force it to change into forms like your arrows?”   
  
“Pretty much, yes.” I confirmed her statement, relieved because of the direction this conversation was headed.   
  
“I have never heard of someone having that kind of semblance before. Semblances just keep evolving and improving. I am actually waiting for the day that someone has the semblance to kill Grimm only with a single thought or something.” Weiss remarked, looking at me with interested eyes.   
  
Oh great, now I had gotten the attention of Weiss-I-want-to-know-everything-about-someone’s-semblance-and-how-it-is-possible-for-them-to-exist Schnee.   
  
“It is a pretty rare one yes.” I answered. I didn’t feel like engaging a conversation on this subject with Weiss, as I was terrified that she would prick through my lies and discover the truth.  
  
Weiss stretched her arms high above her head, and I could hear soft popping. “I will be gone to finish some business for the dance. I expect to be back in half an hour.”   
  
‘Business for the dance’, of course. I wasn’t falling for that one Weiss. “Good luck with asking Neptune to accompany you to the dance, Princess.”   
  
Weiss widened her eyes in shock, but regained her composure almost as fast as she had lost it, and snarked something back at me. I couldn’t even hear it, as Ruby and I were way too busy with laughing at Weiss’ red face.  
  
“You two are insufferable!” Weiss shut the door angrily, and even from inside the room I could hear her stamping through the halls.   
  
Judging by the amused look Ruby and I shared, we didn’t really care about Weiss being mad at us; we could handle it. On top of that, it wasn’t like we hadn’t pulled pranks at her that made her far more furious than she was right now.   
  
Ah, I still remember that time with the bucket filled with water above the door. We had put it there during our lunch break, and when we returned to our dorm after classes ended, we ensured Weiss was the first one to enter the room. And when she did, she was surprised with a load of water being dumped on her head. One of the best days in my life by far.   
  
A little less funny was Weiss’ revenge on us. She had waited patiently until we didn’t expect it anymore, what resulted in us waking up covered in ice. Because of her little prank, we had both fallen sick, and Weiss had felt incredibly guilty, even if she didn’t want to admit it.   
  
However, each day we got warm soup and medicine, personally delivered by Weiss Schnee herself, and of course a scolding because ‘we got sick way too soon’. Well, sorry Ice Queen, but I am not that used to being stuck inside an ice cube for a few hours.   
  
Ruby glanced at the clock hanging above the work desk, then sighed and jumped down on the ground. “I guess it is time to prepare ourselves for the dance. Ugh, that means I will now have to wear that stupid dress.”   
  
She pulled out the red dress she bought together with Weiss, and the heels she borrowed from her. “And on top of that I also have to wear those horrible lady stilts. My life sucks.”   
  
I patted her head in an attempt to comfort her, and also got my dress. The dress was dark green, with gold accents all over the top, and Yang had ensured me it looked amazing on me.   
  
Something about that it went perfectly with the colour of my eyes, and that the gold made me look like some sort of goddess. I don’t have any knowledge on fashion, so I completely trusted Yang on this one. 

At first I had simply refused to wear heels, but somehow Yang had managed to convince me. My feet were already starting to hurt after wearing them for five minutes, and I cursed my past self for giving in to Yang’s puppy eyes (they make her look like a real puppy in need, do you really expect me to say no to that? I am not heartless).  
  
“Yang and Weiss are probably already there. You ready to go Elisa?” Ruby asked me, while still struggling to put her high heels on. Bowing down, I helped Ruby get her heels on, then nodded.   
  
It was time to shine.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14 - The Dance  
  
Pushing open the door, we stepped inside the amazingly decorated ballroom full with people spinning their partners around. Yang stood in front of us, filling in some sort of paper, which probably had something to do with the organisation of the dance. Something I wanted to stay far, far away from. My back was still hurting because of all the boxes and other stuff I had to move, so no more dance organisation things for me.   
  
Yang finally looked in our direction, her face immediately clearing up, a wide smile appearing. “You two look beautiful!” The corners of my mouth quirked up, pleased with the compliment I just received.   
  
“Have you even looked in the mirror, Yang? I don’t hold a candle compared to you, you look incredible.”   
  
Ruby finally fully entered the ball room too, groaning while trying to keep her balance on her lady stilts, as she called it.  
  
While making our way to the ball room, she had more than once suddenly grabbed my arm, nearly pulling me down to the ground with her. After having three almost meetings with the floor, I had forced her to hold onto me until we had reached our destination, and Ruby did as I said, although accompanied with a lot of complaining   
  
“I don’t want Yang to see that I can’t walk on these things, so let go of me.” She had whispered to me when I stopped I front of the door leading to the ball room. Letting go of her, I stepped forward while pushing open the heavy door, keeping an eye on Ruby in case she fell.   
  
My new footwear had caused me some trouble too in the beginning, but I got used soon to the strange way of walking that many people called ‘elegant and sexy’.   
  
“Can we please have a serious talk about how Weiss fights in these?” Ruby asked, carefully walking towards Yang and I, gripping my arm so tight it almost hurt.   
  
Her fingers started turning white because of the strength of her hold, so I softly tapped on her hand. Ruby slowly released me from her dead grip, and my blood finally reached my left arm again, causing a tinkling feeling that was super annoying.   
  
I leaned in, into Yang’s personal space, immediately getting her attention. “How did your talk with Blake go? Is she coming to the dance?” Yang held my gaze, her facial expression unreadable.   
  
“I did the best I could to convince her to take a break. Now the choice is up to her.” Yang said with a sigh.   
  
I bit my lip, an old habit that always played up when I was deep in thoughts or unsure about something. I just couldn’t get rid of it, and after a long time of trying, I had finally admitted my defeat.   
  
“Come on Elisa, she will come. I offered her a dance, who can ever stay away when you get an offer like that?” Yang winked at me, and I only rolled my eyes. Wait a second, did she offer Blake a dance? By the power of fried eggs, my ship was finally sailing.  
  
My eyes twinkled with mischief. This was the moment to confront Yang about her and Blake.   
  
“Sooo, at last you had the guts to ask Blake out?” I wiggled my eyebrows, savouring every second of this.   
  
Yang quickly turned her head to the side, pretending she was writing something down, averting my gaze. However, the sudden rosiness on her cheeks gave me all the information I needed.   
  
A blushing Yang! Ah, this was definitely one of the best days of my life. I could die in peace now.  
  
I swung my arm around Yang’s shoulders, pulling her closer to me. “Just teasing. Feel my pain, Xiao Long, this is my revenge for the time you wouldn’t stop telling people all about my little accident with the toilet.”   
  
She brightened at the memory, sending me an evil grin. “It was way too funny to not tell anyone. It was my duty as a good citizen Elisa! I have to spread my knowledge and make as many people laugh as possible!”

She leaned into my shoulder, warming my side up at a rapid tempo. “And if it had been me who had caused the toilet to explode, you would probably have written a book about it, just so that it would haunt me my whole life.”   
  
“True. A very wise woman once told me I have to spread all the knowledge I have and make as many people laugh as possible. Can’t disappoint her, can I?”   
  
Yang gently punched me in the stomach in response. “You never listen to me, unless you can benefit from my words.” I gasped, slapping Yang on her arm. “I always listen to you! I just don’t do anything with it most of the time.”  
  
She pinched me in an attempt to get back on me, but I knew the truth. Elisa: 1, Yang: 0.  
  
I guess I do have a bit of explaining to do: The Toilet Incident, in short TTI. It was a horrible day, for me and the staff here at Beacon though. Other people, like my friends and all the people they told the story to, think it was one of the best days ever.  
  
That day didn’t start as a bad day. I got up early, like every day, changed into my school uniform and went to the bathroom to wash my teeth.   
  
Here at Beacon each dorm has their own bathroom, with a toilet, sink and shower. It was more than I had ever expected, and I was thankful for the fact that I didn’t have to share it with annoying people like Cardin. Just imagine having to deal with him each day just because you had to take a shower, or brush your teeth.   
  
That is what I call a nightmare.  
  
Well, I was brushing my teeth like a good kid, watching an exhausted me in the mirror. Suddenly, I heard a loud noise coming from the toilet, and it didn’t sound like a good thing.   
  
More like a very very bad thing.    
  
Slowly putting my tooth brush down, I slinked towards the toilet, determined on discovering what or who was making this weird sound, and hopefully being able to kill it.   
  
The toilet came closer and closer, and a little bit afraid I lifted my head to try to find out the source of the noise and- BAAAAAMMMM.  
  
The toilet just exploded, right in my face. And for your information: yes, it hurt.   
  
Of course Yang had chosen that exact time to enter the bathroom, finding me standing there with my face hoovering above the completely destroyed toilet, water spilled all over me and the floor. It didn’t give off a good impression I guess.   
  
“Elisa, we need your help here!” Ruby called me from over the other side of the ball room, and I turned towards Yang with an apologetic smile.   
  
“Seems like they need my help over there.”   
  
Yang laughed, a sweet and joyful sound that echoed through the ballroom, causing people to look up in surprise, trying to locate the source of the sound. Yang’s laughter was one of my favourite sounds. It relaxed my muscles, untying all the knots and relieving me from small pains just for a few seconds, made me forget all my problems and worries, and encouraged me to live every second life gave me to the fullest.   
  
She had a sort of aura surrounding her, that I could only describe as carefree, and I believe that is one of the reasons our team was able to work together that well.   
  
Her presence reassured us, and reminded us that no matter what kind of obstacle tried to bring us down, we would be able to move past it, _together._ Yang was the one who was able to always calm us down and solve problems.  
  
I prayed every day that she would never have to lose the will to laugh.  
  
“Elisaaaa!” Ruby whined, probably because she thought I was taking way too long. How many times do I have to tell that stubborn girl that I don’t have a speed semblance?  
  
“You should better be going, you don’t want to annoy Rubes.” Yang grinned at me.   
  
Her lilac eyes seemed to be dancing in the scenic lights, and combined with her white dress she resembled one of the princesses who had been told since the second she was born that her only reason for existing was to marry and give birth to children, but instead of following the path set out for her, she had decided to rebel against the expectations placed on her and break free.   
  
I released Yang from our side hug, bowing slightly before her, and she returned the gesture with a playful smile. My side immediately chilled, and my body temperature also dropped two degrees Celsius.   
  
That was one of the negative side effects (do you see what I did there) of cuddling with Yang: once she left, you would feel super cold the upcoming two hours. However, hugs with Yang were more than worth it, so I would gladly take this suffering. I am such a hero, I know.  
  
“What’s up?” I joined Weiss and Ruby, who were standing beside one of the many tables in the room.   
  
Each table had their own decorations, and this one had a vase with beautiful white roses on top of it. However, one of the roses was bent, and I instantly solved the mystery of my summoning.  
  
“Not this stupid rose.” Weiss answered, still trying desperately to get the rose back to normal again. “Ugh! I give up!”   
  
I slowly walked up to Weiss and pulled her closer to me, wrapping my arms around her shoulders. It was a simple gesture, but I knew Weiss needed this right now. She had way too much stress because of this dance, wanted it to be absolutely perfect, and when even a small thing like a bent rose occurred, she completely stressed out.   
  
Weiss required a safe and calm place, and I was more than happy to provide a moment of peace for her.   
  
A small pulse of aura and the rose immediately bent back to its natural form, and I gently nudged Weiss. “It is okay Weiss, I fixed the rose, it is okay.” She sniffed, not even bothering to lift her head from the crook of my neck, only nodding, completely trusting me.   
  
Weiss reluctantly let go of me, still holding my hand close to her. Ruby appeared at her side, grabbing her other hand, and the two of them shared a soft smile.   
  
“May I have this dance?” Ruby asked, and Weiss only responded with a bright smile and a small nod.   
  
I watched as they danced, at first a bit awkward and clumsy, but once they were used to each other’s movements, it seemed like time slowed down, and only them dancing was important at that moment. The two of them made a perfect pair, and more than a few eyes were fixed upon them, admiring their bond from a far, basking in the warmth that could be called friendship, or maybe something more, who knows.  
  
Ruby and Weiss happy and having fun? Check. Next on my list: Blake and Yang.   
  
As if she had heard my thoughts, the doors opened once again, revealing a gorgeous Blake Belladonna, wearing a breath taking purple dress, and I swear I could hear Yang’s heart skip a beat, even from this distance.   
  
Blake was holding onto Sun’s arm, but the moment she saw Yang, she slipped away from him, almost running towards Yang, who immediately pulled the corners of her mouth up in a bright smile.   
  
Fortunately, Sun had finally discovered there existed something called a shirt, but to be honest, he looked amazing too. The formal wear really suited him, even though I hadn’t been expecting that.   
  
“Hey dude.” Sun bumped my extended fist as a form of greeting that had become sort of tradition between the two of us.   
  
Most of the time he followed Blake around at school, and Blake was always with us, so we had been kind of forced to spend time together. I soon concluded Sun wasn’t a bad guy at all, he had only chosen the wrong girl to have an obsession with.   
  
Blake and Yang were still talking, Yang sometimes sending glares to Sun, but principally paying attention to Blake, smiling a special smile that only showed when Blake was near. The latter surprised me when she suddenly extended her hand to Yang, murmuring something that sounded like ‘does your offer still stand’.   
  
Yang’s eyes widened, but her face quickly lit up with joy, and she took Blake’s hand with a smirk on her face, allowing her to lead her to the dance floor.    
  
I stood on the side watching my favourite people dancing and having fun, my chest swelling because of all the happiness I was feeling at that moment. All the people I loved where right her, they were happy, which meant I was happy too.   
  
And maybe it wouldn’t stay this way forever, no, I knew it wouldn’t stay this way forever, but you know, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a moment. Because these moments of joy and peace and happiness are the moments that will keep you going when life is tough.   
  
So I watched as Neptune joined Weiss, making her laugh with silly jokes and actually paying attention to her for once. I watched as Jaune danced with Pyrrha, although I didn’t understand why he showed up in a dress, but you, some things are better   
  
I laughed as Nora spilled punch all over herself, blaming Ren in the process, but the latter only laughed at her. I laughed as Weiss and Blake forced me to dance together with them, and I loved them for the way they spun me around, I loved them for the way their eyes sparkled in the ballroom lights and I loved my life at that moment with every fibre of my soul.  
  
Life was good. 


End file.
